


Coming back

by Thei



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Bed-sharing, M/M, Slow Burn, because I say so, enemies to friends to something else, if you can even call it that ..., monster-fighting, stuck in the upside down together, then stuck in a room together, things that could have been awkward isn't awkward, this is mostly pre-harringrove
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-24
Updated: 2018-12-24
Packaged: 2019-09-26 03:50:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 43,872
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17134406
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thei/pseuds/Thei
Summary: Steve accidentally falls into the Upside Down along with Billy Hargrove. They have to run for their lives, fight for survival, and learn to trust each other to avoid getting eaten.And yet, that's just the beginning.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Juniper_Tree](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Juniper_Tree/gifts).



> Partly read through by the lovely Lemonlovely (how they had time to read through it is a mystery to me!), but the remaining mistakes are mine and mine alone.

There was a time when things were … _easy_.

Steve is standing in the hallway of his tiny apartment, phone in hand, and seemingly staring off into the distance. In actuality, he’s staring into the hallway wall, but it’s like he doesn’t even see it. It’s a quarter to eleven on a Friday night, and he’s home alone. He wistfully thinks of the past. Life was so much easier back then, when all he had to worry about was how to convince teachers that _he’d definitely written that essay over the weekend instead of going to that party and spending two days lounging hungover in his bed, of course he had, he only forgot to bring it in today, that’s all –_

Distantly, he’s aware of a tinny voice yelling, and he snaps back to the here-and-now, puts the phone back against his ear, blinks a couple of times.

“I’m sorry, what?”

“Dammit, Steve, are you listening to me?”

Jim Hopper, Hawkins’ sheriff and go-to guy about everything supernatural. Because supernatural things are known to occur in Hawkins, Indiana – and on a fairly regular basis, too.

Steve blinks himself out of his reverie of easier times, and clears his throat. “Yeah, yeah sure, I’m just … you want me to do _what_?”

Steve can practically _hear_ Hopper drag a hand over his face in exasperation, but a second later the sheriff’s voice is back, repeating what he said as soon as Steve answered the phone, a minute ago – and this time he’s speaking slowly, as if Steve is a four-year-old who doesn’t understand big words.

“I need you to get in your car, drive to Freddy’s, go north into the woods until you get to the pond, and _bring back those fucking kids_.”

Steve blinks. It doesn’t make any more sense this time around.

But he’s holding the phone between his shoulder and his ear and pulling on the cord to reach his jacket as he stutters, “Yea– um, sure thing Hop. I’m on my way. Just … which ones? What’s going on?”

There’s a sigh on the other end, and the click of a lighter, followed by an audible drag of a cigarette. Hopper sounds less agitated, but still weary, when he answers.

“Jane and Max were having a sleepover at our place, when Jane felt something … weird. She described it as a ‘disturbance in the force’–“

And Steve swears that he has been hanging out with those kids for too long, because he understands that reference, and knows that it most likely came from Dustin.

“– and _naturally_ they used the radio to call the boys, and they were getting ready to go out to meet them _in the middle of the night without asking permission_ _or even leaving a note_ –“

Steve is getting the distinct feeling that Hopper isn’t talking only to him.

“– when I got home and literally ran into them at the door. Now, Jane and Max _aren’t going anywhere_ –“

Muffled protests, and Steve can imagine the stare-off that occurs in the pause that follows.

“– but the boys are already on their way. And from what the girls tell me, they split up, since what Jane felt was somehow on either side of town. On the other side of the quarry, and in the forest north of Freddy’s. I can only be in one place at a time, so I need someone with a car to go get those little shits and bring them here, so that I can yell at them for putting themselves in danger and for worrying the people around them. Can you do that?”

By now, Steve has managed to both get his jacket and his shoes on, as well as tangled himself in the phone cord. He’s patting himself down until he feels his wallet in his pocket, and reaches for his keys.

“Yeah. I mean. Yeah, I can do that.”

Hopper takes another drag of his cigarette.

“Good man. See you back at the cabin soon?”

“Hopefully, if they don’t run from me …”

“Oh they better not.”

For a second, they’re wordlessly bonding over having to chase a bunch of kids all over town in the middle of the night – and Steve honestly can’t get over how _weird_ that is, because it wasn’t that long ago that _he_ was the kind of kid that would run around town with his friends in the middle of the night (of course, back then it was usually because of harmless stuff like booze, not literal monsters) – but then Hopper mutters “See you soon” and hangs up.

Steve spends another couple of seconds just staring at the phone in his hand.

This is what his life has come to, he supposes. Spending his Friday night locating kids who heard there may be some kind of supernatural threat out in the woods and decided to go investigate – and _without telling Steve_ , too – even though they all know that whatever supposed supernatural threat that happens in Hawkins, may very well be real. And dangerous.

He shudders, shaking himself out of his thoughts. Untangles himself from the phone cord, hangs up the phone, and walks out. Time to go hunting for the kids.

Honestly, his life was so much easier when he was a superficial asshat.

*

By the time he reaches Freddy’s Diner outside of town, his fond memories of easier times has been suitably replaced with annoyance. It’s late, after all, and he could have been snoozing on his lumpy but comfortable couch by now – and it would have been well-earned, too, after a long week of smiling at customers he very much didn’t _want_ to smile at – but _nooo_ , not Steve. Steve is busy being a babysitter for kids who really should know better, considering everything they’ve been through. Going off like this, on their own, without telling an adult? Without telling _Steve_? Honestly, he’s offended. Considering what he went through with those kids last year, he thinks that he’s owed at least the courtesy of a phone call about these things. Steve is going to have a thing or two to say about that, when he finds them. And then he’ll gladly drive them to Hopper’s place, because he’s pretty sure that Hopper is going to have words with the kids, too, and Steve intends to enjoy every second of it.

It’s pure luck that he spots the bikes, haphazardly thrown in the ditch just after a turn in the road. Stepping on the brakes, Steve pulls to the side of the road and parks the car without much care. Judging from the bikes, he’s looking for Dustin and Lucas – and isn’t that sad, that he recognizes their bikes by now?

He stalks to the trunk and grabs his bat – old habits die hard, and even though he hasn’t had to use it for a year, he’d rather be safe than sorry. He spots the walkie-talkie the kids got him for Christmas last year half hidden under his forgotten gym bag, but the batteries are dead and he doesn’t have any spare ones, so he leaves it. He grabs the flashlight that he keeps in the car, too, and is happy to note that it works – it flickers occasionally, but it’s better than nothing.

Equipped thusly, he walks into the woods. It is dark, and a little cold, and there are a thousand things he’d rather be doing right now than this. In fact, he’s half tempted to list all the things he’d rather be doing out loud, only so he can hear something other than leaves crunching underfoot and his own breathing. It’s not that he’s scared, per se … it’s just, it’d be nice to hear a voice, even if it’s just his own. But he keeps quiet, because if he doesn’t, he might not hear the kids – because if there’s one thing he’s sure of, it’s that wherever the kids are, they are making some kind of noise. They always do.

He hasn’t been walking for very long when he hears them. Relief washes over him when the voices he hears are arguing – instead of, say, panicked screams – but the relief is quickly replaced by anger as he stalks closer to the voices. After all, if they’re arguing, they’re not in any imminent danger, which means that Steve has had to go out here for no reason.

“Hey, shitheads!” he bellows when he emerges from the trees into a little clearing like a nightmare, shining his flashlight on his own face for maximum effect.

He’s pleased when the boys jump apart. They must not have heard him approach, because Lucas freezes up and lets out a shrill scream, and Dustin stumbles backwards and falls down in the leaves on the forest floor, clutching his heart. For a few seconds, they are frozen in that moment; until Lucas does a double-take.

“Steve!?”

Dustin, too, un-freezes at this, and sags in relief.

“Steve! Oh my god, you almost gave me a heart-attack.”

“What are you doing here?!” Lucas half-yells as he’s getting to his feet, squinting at the flashlight that Steve is currently pointing at his face.

“Me!?” Steve yells. “What am _I_ doing here? What are _you_ doing here?”

Both boys open their mouths at the same time, no doubt to try to explain, but Steve doesn’t give them the chance.

“I get a call from Hopper who tells me to get in my car and drive to the middle of nowhere to get you guys, since apparently you got it into your heads that it was a good idea to go out in the woods – _alone_ – despite what went down last year.”

“Technically we aren’t alone”, Dustin interjects when Steve has to draw breath, and falters when Steve glares at him. “I mean … there’s _two_ of us, so neither of us are … alone …”

“I had to spend my Friday night driving through half of Hawkins and trudge through this goddamn forest to get you, and you’re discussing technicalities with me? Seriously, Henderson?”

“It’s not like you were doing anything anyway”, Lucas mutters, and averts his eyes when Steve turns the full force of his glare on him.

Steve has to ignore the urge to put his hands on his hips and hiss “Young man!” like a mom – instead he makes a face and says, “Fuck you! I could have had plans!”

Lucas, apparently knowing what’s good for him after all, doesn’t comment further. And wonder of wonders, neither does Dustin. Their silence is loud, though, so Steve decides to fill it.

“Why the hell would you go out here without telling anyone, anyway? You could have called someone – Hopper, or me!”

Lucas and Dustin start talking at the same time.

“We didn’t know if we’d find anything –“

“We didn’t want to worry you –“

“– and there was no need for a car, we could take our bikes –“

“– and Hopper would have told us not to go –“

“– and like you said, maybe you had plans –“

“– and El sounded really shook up so Mike thought it was best if we split up and checked it out.“

“– so we didn’t want to drag you out here if it turned out to be nothing!”

“Just to be safe!”

“We didn’t want to bother you!”

Steve puts his hands up to silence them, and shakes his head.

“That worked like a charm, Dustin, because guess what – you still dragged me out here, even though you didn’t find anything! Now, get over here, we’re going back to the c–”

“But that’s the thing!” Dustin wails and gestures to the darkness behind him. “We _did_ find something!”

All the air rushes out of Steve’s lungs at this proclamation, and he can’t remember how to draw breath. Images of spidery beings with a face full of teeth, and dogs-that-aren’t-dogs pop up in his brain, unbidden, and he can’t quite repress an all-body shudder.

“What?” he eventually manages, and shines his shitty flashlight to the spot where Dustin pointed. It reveals nothing but more darkness.

“I wanted to go back and go and get someone”, Lucas says, quieter. “Dustin wanted to stay here and guard it, like an idiot–“

“Hey!”

“–and radio for the others. That’s what we were arguing about when you showed up.”

“I don’t think it’s a bad idea to keep an eye on something like this, Lucas! If it’s a gate to the Upside Down, then we should stay and make sure that nothing comes through.”

“Guys–“, Steve tries.

“And what would you do if something _did_ come through, Dustin? It’s not like we brought any weapons!”

 “Steve has his bat!” Dustin says and gestures to where Steve is standing. “And besides, I brought a lot of candy. They like candy.”

“Guys“, Steve tries again.

“Are you _kidding_ me?! Just because d’Art liked your stupid candy, it doesn’t mean that everything else from there will. In fact, most things that we’ve encountered from the Upside Down seem to have a taste for _us_!”

“Guys!”

“Oh, so we should just let all kinds of monsters come through then, should we?!”

“We’ve been here for like ten minutes, Dustin! This looks like it’s been here for weeks, so if anything was gonna come through here, _don’t you think it already has_?!”

Dustin draws breath to say something else, but Steve has had enough.

“ _Shut the fuck up!”_

They both turn to him, eyes wide, and he has to actively take a few calming breaths before he continues, “ _What._ Did you find?”

It’s like turning a dial, and the kids turn into the wonder twins; they look at each other in the darkness, raise their eyebrows, turn to look at Steve, and then take a step to the side as one, wordlessly pointing into the darkness behind them. Steve steels himself and steps past them, shines his flashlight in that direction.

And freezes.

The light of the flashlight hits something, alright, but he can’t make sense of what it is. He senses Lucas and Dustin coming up beside him, and when they shine their own flashlights at whatever-it-is, Steve finds himself swearing under his breath.

“ _Fuck_.”

There’s a couple of trees a few steps away from them, and they don’t have any leaves on their branches. That in itself isn’t worrying – they’re in the woods, after all, and it’s late autumn – but the trees in question are also black, and seemingly coated in something dark and slick. They look like wet tentacles, coming out of the leaf-covered ground. But it’s what’s _between_ the trees that makes Steve break out in a cold sweat; between the two biggest black trees, there are no leaves at all on the forest floor. There are no roots, no branches, no rocks, no _ground_. Instead, all he can see is a pool of black, like a puddle of _nothing_. It doesn’t even look wet, like whatever it is that’s coating the trees, and nothing indicates that there’s something there when they shine their flashlights on it – it just looks like someone carved out a part of reality and deleted it. It makes Steve involuntarily take a step backwards, and his hand shoots out and he’s dragging the closest kid (Lucas) back with him.

“Okay”, he croaks, because yes, this is freaky and all but he’s the adult here so he has to act like it. “Here’s what we’ll do. We’ll go back to the car, right now, and get Hopper, because this–“

A crack in the woods behind them makes all of them jump and whirl around, and Steve tries to angle himself so that he’s facing whatever’s coming without fully turning his back to the void between the trees. He slaps the flashlight into Lucas’ chest without taking his eyes off the trees from which he came into the clearing a few minutes ago, and grabs his bat with both hands, holding it high.

There’s something moving in the trees. A dark shape, and something small and bright red – _an eye?!_ – and Steve’s getting ready to hit whatever it is and make a run for it when he hears the drawl of a familiar voice.

“Harrington. Why am I not surprised.”

And even though he really shouldn’t, Steve goes boneless with relief and lowers the bat, leans it against the ground and closes his eyes for a second. That’s Billy Hargrove’s voice, and while Billy Hargrove is never good news, at least he’s not a monster from another dimension. He’s human – and humans, Steve can deal with.

“Howcome it's always you, Harrington?” Hargrove continues, stepping into the clearing and not looking the slightest bit uncomfortable by having three flashlights pointed at his face. The fucker’s not even squinting.

He's wearing a button-up under an open jean jacket, and Steve – who is cold in his much thicker autumn jacket, which is zipped all the way up, thank you – can't understand how the other boy isn't freezing. Because Billy Hargrove is standing there, casually popping a hip in the middle of the woods at night, looking like he hasn't got a care in the world.

Steve has seen it before, though, and knows just how fake that casualness is. His mind flashes back to the night at the Byers'. Has it really been a whole year since then?

Hargrove frowns at him like he somehow missed his cue, and he realizes that he got lost in his thoughts. A dangerous thing to be doing in woods like these – he glances to the side to make sure nothing is moving in the slimy darkness. When he looks back at Hargrove, the other boy’s eyebrows are raised and he looks like he’s waiting for a reply.

“What?” Steve says, honestly a little confused, because what was the question again?

Hargrove's eyes narrows. He plucks the cigarette out of his mouth and licks his lips before giving a tense smile.

“Howcome”, he starts, voice low, “whenever Max goes missing and I go looking for her, I find you hanging with some random kids in creepy places?”

That's a gross exaggeration, and they both know it. Sure, Hargrove has probably seen Steve hang with the kids a couple of times when he's there to pick up Max from whatever the kids have been doing, but this is only the second time that he finds them in a creepy place. Which, now that Steve thinks about it, doesn't look good – _okay_ , fine, he can see where Hargrove is coming from.

He opens his mouth to say something, but the kids beat him to it.

“Well Max isn't here so you can just go!” yells Dustin, at the same time as Lucas says, “What do you want with Max anyway?”

Hargrove turns his attention to Lucas, and that's some serious glaring going on from both parties. Steve takes a step to get between them, and succeeds in getting Hargrove's attention back on him.

“I thought Max was having a sleepover?” he says, casually, and Hargrove tilts his head, reminding Steve of a cat observing a mouse before it pounces.

“See”, the other boy says with shrug of the shoulders, “it worries me that you know that. Why would you know that, Harrington?”

Before Steve can reply, Hargrove drops his cigarette to the forest floor, steps on it and continues, “Max was going to have a sleepover, yes.” He speaks as if they're friends, but his voice is just a little too jovial to be sincere. “But Susan's mother had a nasty fall and had to be driven to the hospital. Naturally, Susan wanted to go there. But she thought she'd tell Max first – it's about her _grandmother_ , after all, and they just _love_ each other.” He's stalking closer while talking, slowly but surely, and Steve has to force himself not to move. “Imagine her surprise when she called Amanda's parents and they told her that Max wasn't there. That the sleepover had been cancelled because Max had called and said she had a cold and had to stay home. Only, she isn’t home.”

Steve hears Lucas shuffle behind him, hears Dustin's quiet “fuck”, and he takes a deep breath and closes his eyes briefly and makes a face. He knows that they're still trying to keep Jane out of the public eye as much as possible, but honestly – lying about where Max is gonna be to her own mother, for something as innocent as a sleepover? Probably not the best idea.

Hargrove laughs at Steve’s grimace, but it's not a friendly sound. “Yeah”, he says. “Exactly.”

When Steve opens his eyes again, Hargrove is just two steps away.

“So Susan goes into hysterics, of course. Dad tells me to forget my own plans for the night and go find the little shitstain, and since I'm such a _good_ and _caring_ brother, I do. She's obviously not at Amanda's. She's not at Heather's. She's not at Sinclair's –”

At this, he turns to Lucas, who looks like he wants to back away, but doesn't.

“– oh yeah, I checked. Rang the doorbell and everything, talked to your _charming_ sister –” Judging by the way he says it, Erica had been her usual, anything-but-charming self, “– who told me that you weren't home either, and that you were probably hanging with your loser friends.”

“Hey!” Dustin says.

“Her words, not mine”, Hargrove shrugs. “But that got me thinking.”

He takes a step closer, and Steve swallows but plants his feet.

“If Max is gone, and Sinclair is out with his loser friends, then judging from past experiences, those two are probably connected. But where are they?”

He's monologuing like a movie villain, Steve thinks and glances back at the darkness to the side of him. Hargrove doesn't seem to appreciate the lapse in concentration, and pokes him in the chest, hard.

“What–”

“So the arcade is closed. I check at Wheeler's, I check at Henderson's, I even check at that freak Byers', but no one's there. And then, when I'm just driving around at random, I go around a bend and almost crash into _your_ car, Harrington!”

Another poke to the chest, and Steve takes a tiny step backwards to regain his balance. Hargrove follows.

“And that's just too much of a coincidence, you know? Because the last time this happened, you were alone with Max and the loser squad in the middle of nowhere, and you couldn't explain why. And I kicked your ass for it.”

He steps even closer, so they're basically chest to chest, and cocks his head to the side.

“Do you have an explanation this time?”

Steve knows, he just _knows_ that this is going to end badly, and all he can think is that he _doesn’t have time for thi_ s. They need to get back to the car, and contact Hopper and tell him about what they found in the woods – they don't have time for Hargrove and his posturing. This needs to end, now.

Before he can even try to talk the other boy down, though, Dustin pipes up, “We don't have to explain anything to you!”

Hargrove backs up a little, just so he can raise an eyebrow with a face that says “really?”, without taking his eyes off Steve for a second. Lucas, probably emboldened by the lack of punches currently being thrown, agrees from the relative safety behind Steve.

“Yeah. If you haven't noticed, Max isn't here!”

Hargrove is still staring down Steve, but he smiles at that. It looks like it hurts.

“Oh I've noticed. And that makes it even more suspicious. Because even though I've told her a thousand times not to hang with you guys, she always end up doing it anyway. So for her to go missing and _not_ be here ...?”

He straightens up, and all traces of joviality – however fake – is off his face in an instant. His voice, when he speaks, is cold.

“Where is my step-sister, Harrington?”

Steve doesn't understand why he has to deal with shit like this. He was having a good night at home. It was calm, it was quiet, it was uneventful. Then, just a phone call later, he's roped into hunting for kids in the woods, and he finds a possible portal to a nightmare world that he has to report to Hopper as soon as possible, and now here’s Billy fucking Hargrove, picking a fight. He doesn't _deserve_ this.

“I don't know, okay?” he snaps, frustrated, and gives Hargrove a little push so he stumbles back a couple of steps. “How the hell should I know, huh? Look around you! Does this look like a place where little girls hang at night?”

Hargrove, who looked almost surprised at that first push, looks faux-thoughtful.

“Well ... _you’re_ here, so ...”

Steve has had enough.

“Fuck you, Hargrove. We don't have time for this right now. Max isn't here, and it's not our fault that you can't keep track of your own sister.”

“ _Step_ -sister”, Hargrove all but growls.

“Why don't you just go back to your car, drive away and do us all a favor and wrap yourself around a tree”, Steve says in a low voice, grip tightening around his bat.

He’s thinking that Hargrove can't seriously be thinking of starting a fight. Not now. It's dark, it's cold, it's late, and it's three against one (or, okay, one and two thirds against one – but the first one is holding a nail bat, and that should count for something!). Hargrove can't possibly be that stupid.

Only, maybe _Steve_ is the stupid one for underestimating his opponent, he reflects when his head snaps back from the force of Hargrove's right-hook. Lucas jumps out of the way with an “oh shit!” and Dustin drops the flashlight he was holding. This takes the light off Hargrove, who uses the sudden darkness to his advantage and follows up with another punch, this time to Steve's gut. Steve bends over with a grunt, and is only standing because Hargrove has a good hold of his jacket.

“Why don't _you_ do us all a favor and stop hanging around little kids!” Hargrove hisses in his ear, before shoving him away. Steve falls on his ass in the dry leaves, but scrambles to his feet and turns back to face his opponent. He is helped by the fact that Dustin does what he can to help; which means he throws the flashlight at Hargrove's head while yelling unintelligibly.

“What the _fuck_ , kid?!” Hargrove yells, indignant, while holding the back of his head. Steve takes this opportunity to tackle the other to the ground while he's distracted. One of Steve's knees end up in Hargrove's stomach, and he feels pretty accomplished when the other lets out an “oof”, and he punches him in the face once, twice. Hargrove only laughs, though, as though this is _funny_ somehow, and easily flips them around so that he's on top.

This feels too much like a repeat of the event a year ago, and Steve doesn't like it one bit, especially as he is punched in the face again.

“So eager to get your ass kicked”, Hargrove comments almost conversationally and raises his fist for another hit. Steve doesn't reply; he has his hands full blocking the fist that's coming for his nose, and besides – you can't reason with crazy.

Speaking of crazy –

“Hey, get off him!”

Something hits the side of Hargrove's head, and he ducks and swears and growls as he turns to whoever threw the whatever-it-was. Steve honestly doesn't give a shit what it was, he just wants to get off the ground and knock Hargrove off his feet, and this is his chance to do just that. When he’s up, he tackles the other around the waist, and they both go down again. They’re rolling around, hitting and kicking, each trying to get the upper hand.

Suddenly, though, there is something under Steve that is definitely not dry leaves or forest underground. He starts and looks around, eyes wide. He sees a dark, dead tree right above him, and he can feel something slick and slimy under his shoulders. His heart skips a beat.

“Stop!” he gasps, but of course Hargrove doesn't let up. “Goddammit, _stop_!”

With strength born from desperation, he's pushing the other boy off himself with an elbow to the ribs. Hargrove hisses and pushes off Steve, backs up a step with a glare –

– and it's like the ground opens up under him, and he falls. Flails his arms around, and Steve reaches out without thinking. Hargrove latches on to the sleeve of his jacket, and if he had only been stumbling, then that would have been enough for him to regain his balance – but he's _falling_ , and as his fingers close around Steve's forearm, Steve slips on the suddenly slippery ground, and falls too.

 


	2. Chapter 2

They're tumbling down in the darkness, and it's not unlike when they were just rolling around, trying to punch each other's lights out – only now neither one of them has the upper hand. Steve gets a kick to the side of the head that makes him see stars, and the world keeps spinning even when he lands hard on something uneven and finally stops moving, trying to get enough breath into his body to keep from passing out.

He blinks his eyes open and for a moment, the air leave his lungs. It's dark, and he can't see much, but those things in the air, that look like snow but _aren’t_ – he _knows_ where he is and he's hoping it's not true, that he just got hit in the head and is hallucinating or something, but –

The ground underneath him moves, and there's a groan coming from somewhere on his right.

_Shit._

Steve is frozen for a second, panicking, heart beating wildly in his chest – and apparently that's a second too long, because Hargrove (because of course it's fucking Hargrove) moves again and growls, “Get your fat ass off me, Harrington!”

Steve lets himself be pushed off the other boy and notices absent-mindedly and with a tiny _tiny_ twinge of satisfaction that Hargrove had ended up face first into the ... ground? ... and Steve had landed on top of him, on his back.

They get to their feet, and Steve is barely up before he's peering out into the surrounding darkness. There are trees all around them, and from what he can see they are all as black and dead as the ones that surrounded the pool of black nothingness that they just left behind in Hawkins. His fingers are twitching at his side, itching to grab his bat – but a quick look around reveals nothing that resembles his bat, so it was probably lost in the scuffle. No bat, no flashlights ...

Strong hands grab him by his jacket, and he's forcefully turned around so that he's face to face with Billy Hargrove, who's opening his mouth to speak – no doubt to continue the fight that their fall had interrupted  – but Steve can't have that. He reacts without thinking, and reaches out to put his hand over Hargrove's mouth.

In any other situation it would have been funny; how Hargrove's eyes widen and he freezes like a deer in headlights. Now, Steve barely notices it – he's too busy freaking out. Hargrove's incredulity only lasts a moment, though. A second later, he's jumped back as if burned by Steve's hand and his face twists into a mask of disgust.

“What the fuck do you think you're doing, you–”

He is interrupted both by his own coughing and Steve hissing, “Shut up.” Steve holds out a hand to indicate that he should stop talking (he doesn't miss that Hargrove flinches away from it). It's quiet around them – too quiet. A feeling like dread is creeping up his spine, and he feels himself starting to sweat despite the chill in the air.

“What are you–”

Steve takes a short moment to level Hargrove with a look. “Shut. Up.”

And okay, so maybe it shouldn't come as a surprise that Billy Hargrove is not the kind of person who reacts well to being told what to do, but Steve honestly has too many other things on his mind at the moment to take that into consideration. But when he's being shoved from behind, it's all he can do not to scream. In fact, the only thing stopping him is that he doesn't want to attract the attention of whatever monsters that dwell here – so he does the second best thing, and whirls around, pushes Hargrove up against the trunk of a tree and holds him there with every ounce of strength he possesses.

”Be quiet”, he hisses, and adds, just as Hargrove opens his mouth to say something, ” _Please_.”

That single word seems to take all the air out of the other boy, and he stops fighting to get away. Steve licks his lips and looks around, nervously, even though he can't see far in the darkness. He wants to cough, but fights it, so when he continues, his voice is rough.

“You don't understand”, he whispers – doesn't have to speak louder, because they're very close, “the situation we're in right now.”

Hargrove must finally understand that something is wrong; maybe he's picking up on the raw fear in Steve's voice or maybe he sees something in Steve's face, because when he speaks, it's in an almost-whisper, even though he still manages to sound obnoxious.

“And what kind of situation is that?”

And Steve wants to laugh, and he wants to cry, and there's hysteria bubbling in his chest, because what is he supposed to say to that? He can't just sit down right here and explain everything that has led up to this point, because they don't have _time_ for it; there's something out there, he can _feel_ it, and they need to _move_. But Billy Hargrove will stand there like an immovable object if he doesn't say something, so he has to say _something_ –

“We fell, right?” he whispers, harshly. “Well, look around you. What did we fall from? There are no hills here. Where did Lucas and Dustin go?” He lets go with one hand and gestures to the spores that are peacefully floating through the air around them. “And this. Is _not_. Snow.”

He pushes off Hargrove and takes a couple of steps back, in case he is attacked again. But Hargrove only stares at him for a second before he glances around, seemingly taking in what Steve just said. While doing so, he coughs again. The sound is loud to Steve's ears, and he winces.

Hargrove makes a “what, I can't even cough?”–face, but Steve's attention is suddenly elsewhere. Namely on the low keening noise that can be faintly heard from behind him. His blood runs cold, and the hairs on the back of his neck is standing up. His eyes are wide when he licks his lips and whispers one word.

“Run.”

Hargrove frowns, but the keening noise suddenly turns into a weird _hnk hnk hnk_ noise which is getting _closer_ , and Steve doesn't stay around to try to explain. He's off like a shot, and he only slows briefly to grab a hold of Hargrove's arm to get him going.

“ _Run_!”

Hargrove stumbles but moves, and that'll have to be enough. There is a sound behind them, a strange chittering, and Steve knows that sound, _remembers_ that sound, has had several nightmares about that sound. He knows that if he were to look back right now, he'd see at least one demodog chasing them – so he doesn't look back. He runs, heart in his throat, and hopes that he won't trip in the darkness, that he'll find some kind of shelter, that he'll somehow survive this.

A yelp behind him, and his breath hitches. There's a thud, and a growl, and a muffled scream, and Steve throws his head back in desperation as he slows down. His whole _being_ is telling him to continue running, but he can't leave anyone to the mercy of the demodogs – not even Billy Hargrove. He curses at himself as he turns around, peering into the darkness, and unthinkingly moving his feet around to feel for something, _anything_ , that he can use as a weapon.

His shoe kicks against something, and he spares a glance down. A branch, fallen from a dead tree. It's lighter than he thought it would be when he picks it up, and longer than his bat, but it'll have to do.

Rushing back in the direction of the noises, he doesn't have to go far to get close enough to realize three things: One, there is thankfully only one demodog so far. Two: Hargrove is on the ground, writhing to get away. Three: the demodog is above him, with Hargrove's arm in its mouth.

Not stopping to think, because then he wouldn't have the courage to do anything, Steve rushes the demodog and swings the branch at its head.

The branch breaks, like it was made out of papier maché, but at least it shakes the demodog enough to release Hargrove's arm and turn its attention to Steve. And Steve, who abruptly finds himself weaponless and faced with a monster dog with a face full of teeth, reacts on instinct and _kicks_ the demodog off Hargrove, as hard as he can.

Not waiting around to see if it gets back up, he bends down and paws at Hargrove's shoulders until he's dragged him upright, and this time he's pushing the blonde ahead of himself until they're both running. The relief he feels over the fact that they _can_ both run makes him angry, and he half-yells, “Are you _stupid_?! I told you to fucking _run_!”

But the anger turns back to fear when he hears a yip with an answering growl behind him, because the first demodog's got friends, and they're on their trail. He sees that Hargrove's looking back, and even in the darkness he can see the other boy's eyes widen in fear. After that, they're just moving, as fast as they can.

Steve has no destination in mind as he's running – not that it would help, because he doesn't know where he is – all he can think of is to get away, get away, _get away_. He's running until the sounds of snarling behind him grows more distant, until he can't hear anything but his own labored breath; until he simply _can’t_ anymore. He has no idea of how long he's been running when he finally stumbles out into a space that isn't all trees. He screeches to a halt and has to lean against a thick tree trunk so he won't fall over, panting loudly in the silence. When the sounds of rustling in the dark woods reaches his ear, he whirls around; if he'll go down, at least he'll go down fighting.

But it's not demodogs, it's just Hargrove, who's almost running into him but puts a hand up against the tree to stop himself in the last second. Hargrove is breathing hard and looking pale, and Steve himself is wheezing. Peering around Hargrove and swallowing to try to get rid of the lump in his throat, he looks out into the dark to see if they're still being followed. He can't see or hear anything, so maybe they lost them? Or maybe the demodogs gave up, or stayed behind? He doesn't know how far they managed to run, but he knows it can't be very far; the air is hard to breathe and he knows that he can run for far longer than this, normally.

Just to be on the safe side, he pulls down the zipper of his jacket and pulls his sweater up to cover his mouth and nose – he doesn't want to inhale more of those spores than he has to. He is mildly surprised when Hargrove takes a look at him and then follows his example by pulling up his own shirt – and _buttoning_ it to make it stay there, will wonders never cease? – but then the blonde's expression darkens and he exclaims, “Okay, what the _fuck_ was that?”

He coughs, and Steve winces and looks around worryingly. He puts a finger to his lips, and Hargrove rolls his eyes and hisses, lower, “What the _fuck_ , Harrington?”

Steve doesn't answer immediately, so Hargrove pushes his shoulder with one hand, and that – that just does it for Steve. All the adrenaline that's still coursing through his veins makes him explode and push back, and suddenly Hargrove is against the tree and Steve is grabbing him by the front of his jacket and he whisper-yells, “Will you shut the fuck up!? You want those things to hear us or what? You're gonna get us killed!”

Hargrove is clawing at Steve's grip with his hands, but it's feeble and Steve easily holds him in place.

“What were those things?” Hargrove whisper-shouts back. “And what the _fuck_ is going on?”

“They're demodogs”, Steve gets out between clenched teeth, _knowing_ that giving an answer will just lead to more questions, and hating when he's proven right.

“Demo– What kind of a stupid name is that?!”

That had been Steve's first reaction to the name too, but coming from Hargrove, all it does is fuels the anger in Steve's chest. He pulls the other boy from the tree only to slam him back against it.

“Be quiet, dammit! It's your fault we're even here, so _you_ don't get to–”

He trails off when Hargrove squeezes his eyes shut and his breath catches, and he drops his hands from Steve's to cradle one of them against his body. And Steve suddenly spots the dark stains on the sleeve of Hargrove's jacket, and the tear in the shirt that he pulled up over his face (and which has now fallen down again, revealing Hargrove grimacing in pain).

Steve abruptly lets go of him and takes a surprised step back.

“You're hurt.”

Hargrove glares at him. When Steve reaches out, though, he twists his body to avoid him and lowers his hands.

“I'm fine, don't fucking touch me.”

Steve wouldn't define the blood he can see dripping from Hargrove's hand as “fine”, and he says so.

“No you're not, you're obviously bleeding–”

“I _said_ I'm fine!”

And Steve wants to pull his hair out in frustration, but fine. _Whatever_. If Hargrove says he's fine, then he's fucking fine. Steve doesn't care, as long as he can keep up. Because they have to get somewhere safe.

Partly to avoid having to look at the other boy, Steve takes a better look around them, and his eyes widen in the darkness. It's not a clearing they've run out into; it's a road. It's dark and what might have been asphalt once is overgrown and covered with dirt and dust and what looks like roots or vines, but he can clearly see how the trees lining it disappear into the darkness to both sides of him.

“You’re fine?” he comments. ”Great. Then let's go.”

Not waiting for a reply, he stalks off in one direction and hopes against hope that it's the right one. He has no idea if there even _is_ a right direction in this case, but a road has to lead _somewhere_. He's fully expecting to either be attacked from behind by Hargrove, or at least hear him swear loudly – and is surprised when none of that happens. After a few seconds, he hears steps following him. He doesn't turn around.

*

Still wary of being pursued or overheard, they walk in silence, with only the occasional cough interrupting it. But even when he coughs, Steve tries to suppress it, and he can tell that Hargrove does as well. They put their feet down as silently as they can, to be able to hear anything sneaking up on them, and move as fast as they can without starting to jog.

After a while, there's a bend in the road that looks somehow familiar, and Steve squints into the darkness on the side of the road, instinctively looking for –

_There!_

He stops abruptly, and Hargrove almost walks into him.

“What?” he whispers.

“I know where we are”, Steve whispers back and walks towards the sign.

It's grimy and overgrown and looks like it's been standing there for a decade, but when he runs his hand over it, brushing away the dirt and the dead, paper-like vines that seem to have grown all over it, letters appear.

 _WELCOME TO HAWKINS_ , it says. Steve has seen that sign a thousand times, coming back from the city, but he's never seen it like this. It makes something cold creep up his spine – he _knew_ he was in the Upside Down, from the darkness to the spores in the air to the trees to the demodogs, but he's never actually seen it. Last year, he was in the tunnels under the town, which was – well, at least Upside Down _adjacent_ , but from what he's been told of the place, it's like their world, only _not_. Everything that exists in Hawkins, exist in the Upside Down, only in another version. A scarier version.

Steve thought he understood, but he now realizes that he didn't. And standing here, looking at this sign, he doesn't know if he's ready to see it for himself.

There really is no choice though, is there? They can't stay out here – they need to find shelter, and help, and a way to get back. And shelter, at least, they can find in town.

Turning to Hargrove, he motions with his head to keep going. Hargrove is still quiet, but this time when they start walking, he walks alongside Steve instead of behind him. Steve tries not to let himself be distracted by it – he's busy keeping his eyes open for any signs of the monsters he knows live in this place.

They reach a curve in the road, and Steve is not surprised to see that his car is _not_ parked there. He doesn't know if he expected it or not. But he says nothing, just continues walking. When the trees give way to a dark building a while later, he slows his steps. Lets Hargrove walk ahead, and watches his reaction as he takes in the diner; the parking lot out front, the big windows, the glowing neon-sign over the door that instead of the warm pink light he’s used to, somehow glows a disturbing dead white-grey. It's definitely Freddy's, but it looks like it's been abandoned for 20 years.

Hargrove stops. Stares. And Steve can see the moment he recognizes the place, because his shoulders drop and his face goes blank. Slowly, he turns towards Steve and jerks his head at the diner.

“That Freddy's?”

Steve nods. Hargrove nods too, like he expected it, and works his jaw.

“Then where the fuck is my car?”

Of all the things he could have asked ... Steve felt like he was prepared for anything but that. He blinks, shakes his head, motions to the building in front of them.

“Let's get inside first. Questions later.”

Hargrove looks like he wants to argue – then again, he always looks like he wants to argue – but gives an unamused little smile and a jerky nod and moves to the door.

It's locked or jammed somehow and won't open, but Hargrove picks up a rock from the side of the road and smashes it through a window on the side of the building, and then reaches inside with a wince to get it open. They climb through, and close it after them.

They find themselves in a dark little room with a table and two chairs – a break room, maybe? – and move to get out of it. Neither one of them mention it, but they both seem to want to move away from the broken window. After all, if they could get in through it, other things can as well. They put a door behind them and the break room, and end up in the diner's kitchen, complete with tiled floors and steel countertops. It is even darker than the break room – there’s only two sources of light; an unnatural-looking faint white glow coming from where the light over the stove should be, and the dim light coming from the open doorway to the diner, where the big windows let in at least a smidge of the not-complete-darkness of the outside. The inside looks as abandoned and run-down as the outside, though, and there are dark vines growing along the walls.

Still, it's as safe as they're going to get at the moment.

Steve takes as deep a breath as he can manage, and turns to Hargrove, prepared for the barrage of questions that are sure to follow ... only to falter. Hargrove is leaning against the doorway, eyes squeezed shut, holding his left arm with his right hand – he looks like he's in pain. Frowning, Steve can see the dark stains on the sleeve of Hargrove's jacket – and he can see the blood on his hand.

When Hargrove opens his eyes and sees Steve watching him, he tries to straighten up, but Steve has already seen.

“Show me”, Steve demands in a whisper and reaches out for the other boy's arm.

But Hargrove twists away, and Steve is left standing there with one hand hanging in the air between them. After a second he shakes himself out of his stupor and reaches out again, swatting away Hargrove's hand and grabbing him by the wrist. This elicits a hiss from the other boy, but Steve grits his teeth and drags Hargrove away from the doorway by pulling on his jacket. He holds it up and inspects it, and then brusquely says, “Take your jacket off.”

Hargrove seems to forget for a second that he's trying to get out of Steve's grip, because he stills. “I'm sorry, _what_?”

“You're bleeding”, Steve says and raises Hargrove's arm a little, making him grimace.

“Ow! Yeah, no shit. What's it to you?”

“You're no good if you bleed out”, Steve says, gruffly. “Get that jacket off and let me take a look.”

“Wanna get me out of my clothes, Harrington?”

Steve has no patience for this, and grabs at the denim. When Hargrove doesn't stop him, he briefly entertains the thought that maybe Hargrove needed help with it but didn't want to ask – in the end he concentrates on just getting the jacket off, without much help from the jacket's owner. Hargrove winces at the sleeves, and Steve tries to be more careful, even though a part of him wants to just rip it off, Hargrove's comfort be damned.

“Ow, ow, _fuck_ ...”

As soon as the jacket is off, Hargrove pulls the damaged arm closer to his body and turns away, as if to protect it from Steve. Huffing, Steve grabs his shoulder and yanks him around, despite his protests.

“Hey!”

“Don't be a pussy. Let me see.”

“Wonderful bedside manners you have there, Harrington.”

Coming to the belated conclusion that ignoring Hargrove is probably the best plan, Steve inspects the mangled arm as well as he can in the dim light. It really _does_ look mangled; the sleeve of the shirt is torn and bloody, and underneath it is skin that looks like it's punctured in at least two dozen different places. The wounds are small, but numerous, and most of them are still bleeding. Not good. There's too much blood for him to see clearly, and he wishes he could wash it off to get a better look.

He reaches out and tries the tap over the sink. Nothing. No water. Which isn’t surprising, from what he’s heard of the place, but –

He turns his attention back to Hargrove.

“Okay, we need to wrap this up”, Steve concludes.

Actually, they need to clean it, disinfect it and then ideally get the other boy to a hospital from the looks of it, but since those things aren't on the table at this moment in time, wrapping it up will have to do. Hargrove seems to come to the same conclusion, judging by the look on his face. With a resigned sigh, he reaches up to his torn shirt and begins ripping it off.

Steve is gaping. Trust Billy Hargrove to start stripping in the middle of a life-threatening situation. “ _What_ are you doing?”

“Do you have a better idea? This is ruined anyway.”

Oh. Feeling only a little embarrassed that he didn't think of that, Steve snaps his mouth shut. While Hargrove grits his teeth and removes the shirt, he's struggling with trying to rip it into smaller strips with a damaged arm – not that that's stopping him; he's currently holding it between his teeth and his good hand – so Steve rolls his eyes and shakes his head.

“Give it here”, he demands and holds out his hand. He's not waiting for the blonde to give it to him, but snatches it right out of his hand. Hargrove glares, but doesn't comment. That's when Steve looks down and is half tempted to groan out loud. It must show on his face, because Hargrove goes, “What?”

“Your chest”, Steve motions to it, and the other boy looks down at himself.

“Oh”, he says. “It's not ...”

There is a bleeding but thankfully not deep claw mark on his chest, about the length of Steve’s hand, and a fresh bruise on his sternum that Steve is pretty sure he didn't cause – then again, the redness on the other boy's ribs is most likely due to Steve's elbow, so who knows?

Steve resolves to not feel too bad about it – he's probably got bruises of his own, if the ache in his body (that he's trying not to think about) is any indication. Besides, Hargrove started it. And it's actually his fault that they're even here right now.

He starts ripping the shirt into smaller pieces with more force than necessary while Hargrove looks on, somewhat uncomfortably. Hunching his shoulders, the blonde twists around so that he's facing away, and if Steve didn't know better he'd think that Hargrove was embarrassed. That can't be it, though, because that guy has _never_ , as far as Steve knows, wasted an opportunity to get shirtless. Then again, it _is_ pretty chilly, even inside the diner.

Steve coughs through the shirt that he still has over the lower half of his face, and realizes that he's wearing three layers, including his jacket. If it's chilly to him, then Hargrove must be cold.

Not that he cares, or anything.

Hargrove narrows his eyes and doesn't move when Steve beckons him closer, and Steve is overcome with frustration once again; why must everything be a fucking struggle with this guy?!

“What, you wanna do it yourself?” he sneers while still trying to keep his voice low. “Be my guest, give it a try!”

He shoves the strips of fabric at Hargrove, who looks like he's actually considering it. But then he glances around the dark room, coughs again and finally gives a jerky nod.

“Fine”, he says between clenched teeth, and leave it to Billy Hargrove to make it sound like he's doing someone a favor for letting them help him.

Ignoring it for now, Steve grabs Hargrove's bloody hand and starts wrapping it up, tying the strips together as he goes. He's angry and honestly still scared, so he's not overly careful. Hargrove doesn't make a sound though, even when Steve gets to the parts of his forearm where there are not only puncture wounds, but also ripped skin. Steve glances up, and Hargrove is pale and swallowing hard – but he doesn't make a peep.

Wordlessly, Steve moves on to the other boy's chest. It's more difficult to wrap the scrape there, because of the placement and their lack of proper bandages. In the end, he wraps the worst of it from around Hargrove's shoulder to under his arm on the other side.

When Steve is finished, he's dismayed to see that his own hands are slick with Hargrove's blood, and discreetly tries to wipe the worst of it off on his jeans. Hargrove licks his lips and looks down, tries to move the fingers on his bandaged arm, winces when it hurts him.

“Well, aren't you a good nurse”, he murmurs, too low for Steve to feel the need to comment. Picking up his jacket from the counter behind him, he carefully threads his bad arm through the ripped and bloody sleeve. Steve watches with a frown; that's a lot of blood, both on Hargrove and himself. If the demodogs can smell blood, they're basically fucked. But at least Hargrove's not in any immediate danger of bleeding out. Infection, though? Very much a possibility. They need to find a way of getting the fuck out of here.

Hargrove has managed to get his jacket on, and now he's straightening up and watching Steve. His raised eyebrows seem to say “Now what?” He hasn't even tried to button up the jacket, but Steve will be damned if he's trying to mother the other boy. If Hargrove wants help, he can damn well ask for it. Steve's had enough.

There's still a sleeve left of Hargrove's mangled shirt, and Steve throws it at him and motions to his face.

“Cover up”, he says and motions to the spores the float through the air, even in here. “You don't want to breathe too much of this shit in.”

Holding the sleeve in his good hand, Hargrove raises an eyebrow. When Steve doesn't move, he shrugs and puts the fabric between his teeth again, trying to rip it in half along the length of it.

Steve absolutely does _not_ itch to do it for him; instead he turns away and walks around the darkened kitchen, trying to see if he can find anything that can be of use. What he finds is not encouraging; the electricity doesn't work – no surprise there – and there is no water in the taps. The weird light from above the (non-working) stove somehow feels _organic_ , and Steve gets the feeling that the Upside Down is a living _thing_ that’s trying and failing to copy the light in the normal world. He doesn’t want to get close to it.

A thick layer of grime covers every surface, making him reluctant to touch anything. Most of the cupboards are open, but they're either empty or only contain strange brittle pots and pans. There is nothing here that they can use, and Steve feels like pulling out his hair in frustration.

Not that they're gonna stay here for long enough to need food and water. They're getting out of here. Speaking of ...

He finishes his round of the kitchen and turns back to Hargrove, who has somehow managed to finish with the sleeve and is now struggling to tie the pieces together, thick end to thick end. Steve watches as he crouches down and uses his knee, his teeth and his good hand to tie two knots. It's almost impressive. When he's done, he stands up on wobbly legs and brandishes the sleeve like it's a prize. There is no way he's gonna be able to tie it around his face though, and they both know it. That doesn't stop him from trying.

Steve watches for a while, before he snaps and snatches it out of Hargrove's hands. Forcefully turning him around, he wraps the fabric around the blonde's face and moves to tie it off in the front.

“You just want to get your hands on me, is that it Harrington?”

“Are you kidding?” Steve says. “Gagging you has been a dream of mine since I met you.”

Hargrove coughs and it sounds almost like a laugh. “Kinky.”

Steve ties the knot and gives the other boy a light push; not enough to hurt, just a warning that makes Hargrove take half a step back.

Arms out in an “I mean no harm”-gesture, Hargrove leans back against the counter, looking way too comfortable for someone who was just thrown into another dimension and attacked by a demon dog. Then again, he doesn't really know that yet, because they have yet to get to the Q&As.

As if on queue, Hargrove's eyes harden.

“Now that that's out of the way ... Wanna maybe try explaining again? What the hell is going on? What the fuck was that thing? Where the _hell_ are we?”

And Steve knows he's not supposed to talk about these things with outsiders; has signed a ton of papers that forbid him from doing so, in fact. But he figures that the cat is out of the bag at this point – more than that; it's out of the house, out of the state, basically halfway out of the country by now. So he snorts, and says, “Actually, that's kinda where we are. _Hell_.”

“Not funny, Harrington”, Hargrove growls, and there's a warning in his voice.

Steve sighs and rubs at his eyes. “No”, he says. “It really isn't.”

Taking a deep breath – or as deep as he can without choking on the air in here, at least – he motions for the other side of the kitchen, where it's a little bit lighter. There's a chair standing by the doorway, and Steve sneaks out into the diner to get another one, which he brings back with him.

With each of them sitting in a chair, facing each other, Steve is struggling with how he should start.

“This is Freddy's, right?”

Hargrove gives a hesitant nod, as if he's not sure where Steve is going with this.

“Well”, Steve continues, “it's not _really_ Freddy's, though.”

Hargrove levels him with a blank look, and Steve grimaces.

“I mean, there's this place where everything is like the world we know it, only ... not. Like a mirrored image or something; darker and different, but the same. And there are monsters here, like the demodogs. There's this thing called a demogorgon too, and that one's ... actually worse, we don't want to see one of those. And, like, last year there were these tunnels under Hawkins, and it was all connected to the lab, and–“

“I'm gonna stop you right there”, Hargrove drawls and holds up a hand. “You know this sounds crazy, don't you? Like, batshit crazy. The kind of crazy where they'll lock you up in a padded room and throw away the key.”

Steve rolls his eyes. “Believe me, I know.”

Hargrove watches him. Looks down at his bandaged arm, currently resting in his lap. Looks up again.

“You're not making sense. Just answer my questions. What were those things in the woods?”

“Demodogs.” At the unimpressed look on Hargrove’s face, Steve hurries to add, “I _know_ , okay, but it's what the kids called them, and the name kinda stuck. They're these ... monster dogs, basically, from this place where we are right now – it's called the Upside Down, by the way – and ... I don't know. They're fast and scary and has a lot of teeth. Hunt in packs, I suppose. Dustin mentioned some kind of hive mind, but I don't know what that means. I was too busy not having them eat me to listen.”

“It didn't have eyes”, Hargrove comments.

“What?”

“I tried punching it in the eyes to make it let go, but it didn't have any.”

“Yeah ... they seem to have a pretty keen sense of smell, though.”

They both look down at their bloody clothes, and Steve suspects that they're thinking the same thing.

“So what, they wanna eat us?”

Steve shrugs. “I don't know, I–“ Then he remembers Bob, and his mouth goes dry. “Actually, yeah, they probably _do_ wanna eat us. And we want to avoid that, so we're gonna stay clear of any and all demodogs, okay?”

Hargrove lifts his damaged arm a bit. “Fine by me.”

They continue like that for a while; Hargrove asking questions and Steve answering to the best of his ability. Sometimes those answers aren't good enough, from the frustrated look on Hargrove's face, but it's the best Steve can do.

In the end, Hargrove summarizes, “So, there's a whole other Hawkins that isn't the real Hawkins that is full of monsters and where the air is probably toxic and where everything, basically, is dangerous. And we ended up here after falling through some kind of gate? Did I get that right?”

“Yeah, pretty much.”

“Okay, well then I have one more question.”

Expecting him to ask how they'll get back, Steve draws himself up. He doesn't have any idea, but between the two of them, they'll think of something, right? He is therefore more than surprised when the words out of Hargrove’s mouth are, “Is Max here too?”

“What?” Steve splutters. “No! _What?_ ”

Hargrove relaxes back in his chair and pulls on his jacket. “She's missing, and you've just told me that last year when I was looking for her, she was involved with you guys and this ... this place. So you're telling me that she's not involved this time?”

“No, I–“ Steve starts, then quiets. Truthfully? “Okay, she may be involved, in a way, but she's not here. She's having a sleepover, like she said. Just, not _where_ she said she'd be.”

“Where is she?”

There's really no avoiding this, is there?

“The kids have this friend, Jane. She's Hopper's daughter.”

Hargrove stares.

“The Chief has a daughter?”

“Adopted.”

“And Max is there now?”

Steve nods. “Yeah, she's safe, don't worry.”

Hargrove barks out a laugh, then breaks down into coughing. “I'm not worried about her”, he manages when he can breathe again. “I'm worried about my own hide if I don't get her home to her mom in one piece.”

Dragging a hand over his face, Steve hesitates a second before he says, “Speaking of getting home in one piece ...”

Steve trails off, not knowing exactly how to continue. Hargrove waves his hand in an impatient “go on”-motion.

“We should probably talk about that. How we're gonna get back, I mean.”

“Can't we just get back through that gate you were talking about?”

“We _fell_ , remember?” Steve says, frustrated. “But there was nothing that we fell _from_ , at least that I saw. We don't know how the gate looks like from this end, or how to enter it. Besides, I don't particularly feel like going back there if there are demodogs guarding that place, do you?”

Answering that question would mean agreeing with Steve, and Steve can _see_ how that's annoying the other boy. Instead of answering, Hargrove asks, “Well then, what do you suggest we do? Stay here and freeze to death?”

“First of all, you won't freeze to death if you just _button up your jacket_ , Jesus Christ! Second, I–“

And an idea hits him before he's even realized it, and he continues on seamlessly, before he even thinks about it.

“– I think we should get to the other side of town, actually.”

Hargrove makes a doubting noise, but Steve is getting more and more sure that this is what they should do.

“The kids, they were checking out two places at once, right? One in the forest by Freddy's, and the other by the quarry.” Intentionally glossing over _how_ exactly they came up with those places in the first place, he barrels on. “And if _one_ of those places is a gate to get between our world and this, then maybe the other one is too? Besides, Hopper was gonna check out the other site – if there's anyone to go to about this shit, it's Hopper. He's been in here before.”

Hargrove waves his hand in front of him dismissively. “Okay, ignoring the fact that the Sheriff is somehow in on all this supernatural bullshit ... you want us to leave the gate we _know_ works ... for a place on the other side of town that _might_ work? Because the Chief is there?”

And maybe Jane, Steve thinks, but doesn't say. “Yeah.”

“And between us and the other side of town, there may be more of those monster dogs, as well as other – or worse! – monsters?”

Steve hesitates, then nods again. “Yeah ...”

“Not to mention that it's on the other side of town, and the quarry is, like, _several hours walk_ from here?”

Steve sighs and drags a hand through his hair.

“Look”, he says, “the alternative is literally to get back in the woods and risk running into those demodogs again, in the _hopes_ that we'll even find that gate, let alone reach it and get through it! With _Dustin_ and _Lucas_ as our backup on the other side.”

Dustin and Lucas was hopefully halfway to Hopper's cabin by now, though – because if Steve and Billy could get through in one direction, there was a possibility for the demodogs to get through in the other direction, and Steve didn't want the kids anywhere near those things again.

“So what you're suggesting”, Hargrove counters, shaking Steve out of his thoughts, “is that we go through the town – and still risk running into those demodogs – and then into the woods on the _other_ side of town, in the hopes that there even _is_ a gate there?!”

“At least there'll be buildings there! Maybe we'll find supplies, something we can use to defend ourselves with, maybe there's ... I don't know, people! If we'll find anything, don't you think we'll find it there? Or are you gonna defend yourself with a _frying pan_ the next time you're attacked?”

Hargrove doesn't speak for a moment. Then, “A frying pan?”

“Uh, yeah, I saw one in a cupboard.”

Motioning for the cupboard in question, Steve watches as Hargrove gets up, finds the frying pan and weighs it in his good hand. He swings it around a couple of time, as if testing it out. “Eh. It's better than fucking nothing.”

Steve rolls his eyes. _Billy Hargrove, everyone._

“Look”, he says again. “I really think that we should check out the quarry site. Which one of us has prior experience with this place, huh?”

Hargrove hefts the frying pan in his hand, looking thoughtful.

“Fine”, he finally says, and points the frying pan at Steve. “But if this gets me killed, I'll beat your ass into the ground.”

Steve sighs; in relief or frustration, he's not sure. “Fair enough.”

Hargrove motions to the door with a sarcastic “Ladies first”, and Steve just _knows_ that he's grinning under his makeshift face mask.

“You know”, Steve muses, pushing past him and not-so-accidentally bumping into him while he does it, “you're taking all this pretty well.”

“That's because I'm not a pussy, Harrington”, Hargrove replies, and pushes back – not hard enough to make him stumble, just in retaliation to the bump – and Steve fights the urge to groan out loud.

He's already stuck in hell – to be stuck here with _Billy Hargrove_ is, like, hell _squared_.


	3. Chapter 3

Steve's watch informs him that it's a quarter to two at night when they leave Freddy's behind; it takes them almost two hours to get into town. Mostly due to the fact that they're treading carefully – the road is by far the easiest way to travel, but it also leaves them out in the open. They walk side by side, and by unspoken agreement they each keep their eyes on the trees on their respective side of the road.

It's dark out. It's in the middle of the night, so this is not surprising, but it's a different kind of darkness than what Steve is used to. He looks up at the dark grey sky, and he sees no stars. He sees no clouds. The sky is just a solid mass of grey, like someone has thrown a thick blanket over the world, trying to suffocate it.

And everywhere, the spores in the air. They're not falling, like snow – they're just floating around, as if they were specks of dust in an old attic.

The sounds are muffled too. The air feels thick to breathe, and it's like the sounds gets lost in the heaviness of it before they reach their destination. The silence is oppressive, so every time they hear a noise that isn't made by them, they freeze and stare out into the darkness, preparing for whatever's coming at them.

Nothing comes at them.

Before they left the diner, Steve managed to smash the chair from the kitchen so he'd have _something_ to defend himself with, if the need should arise. It was easier than it should have been. The wooden leg of the chair he's holding feels brittle in his hands, like the branch he used to get the demodog off Hargrove, and he suspects that it won't hold for more than one hit. Still, it feels comforting in his hands; not _quite_ like his bat, but almost. And in the words of Billy Hargrove; it's better than nothing.

Hargrove tried the chair leg bat, but returned it to Steve with a disdainful huff. He kept the frying pan, and in any other situation the sight of Billy Hargrove walking around with a frying pan would be hilarious. Steve isn't laughing, though. Nothing about their situation is funny.

It's cold – not quite freezing, but cold nonetheless, and Steve is grateful for his jacket. Occasionally, he glances over at Hargrove, sees the skin of the other boy's chest peek out through the open jacket, under the makeshift bandages. Hargrove's walking a little stiffly and he's holding his damaged arm close, with his hand under his jacket, tucked into the edge of his jeans. For warmth? Or for the pain? Steve doesn't know, and isn't really interested in finding out. If Hargrove is uncomfortable, he'll say so. He doesn’t strike Steve as the kind of person to stay quiet if there’s something on his mind.

Still. If it was Steve, he'd be cold.

Entering Upside Down Hawkins is a depressing affair. They peek through the windows of the first few houses they get to, but it's all the same; they're all abandoned, run-down, filthy and overgrown with dark roots and what looks like dead vines. There are no signs of life, and Steve doesn't know if he should be thankful for it, or disappointed.

“It looks so ... dead”, he whispers.

He doesn't know if he meant for Hargrove to hear it, but the blonde glances over and gives Steve a deadpan look.

“Like usual, then”, he comments, and Steve snorts.

It's not funny, but there's something comforting in the fact that even when Hargrove's stuck in the Upside Down and has been mauled by a demodog, he's still his usual asshole self. It’s nice to have some kind of normalcy to cling to.

When they get closer to the center of town, and when Steve has developed one hell of a headache, Hargrove stops abruptly and holds out a hand in warning. Steve stops too and holds his breath. He can't hear anything. A couple of seconds pass, during which none of them move a muscle, before he dares to whisper, “What?”

Hargrove shakes his head and gestures for him to be quiet, and in that same moment Steve sees movement in his peripheral vision. So does Hargrove, judging by how they both slowly but simultaneously turn their heads in that direction. There's nothing there, and Steve has just started to relax again when the lean shape of a demodog canters between two buildings.

Neither him nor Hargrove move – they don’t make a sound. Steve doesn't dare _breathe_ , and even his own heartbeat feels too loud, pounding in his ears. Maybe it didn't see them? _God, please don’t let it have seen them._

But no prayers are answered in the Upside Down. The demodog comes back around the corner, seemingly sniffing the air, before it lowers its head and makes a noise somewhere between a whine and a growl. Instantly, three more demodogs show up beside the first one, and Steve's heart jumps into his throat.

“Shit”, Hargrove breathes beside him, at the same moment as Steve says “Go!”, and they turn as one and run, just as the demodogs take off after them, like they're in some kind of nightmare greyhound race.

There is absolutely no way that they'll be able to outrun a pack of demodogs, Steve thinks, hysterically. And there's no way they'll be able to fight them off with only a frying pan and a very breakable piece of chair. One demodog, maybe. Two, perhaps. Four? No way. They'll die here in the Upside Down, they'll be ripped to pieces and eaten and no one will ever find their bodies–

“Harrington!”

Busy running for his life and panicking, Steve doesn't notice at first that Hargrove has veered off to the side.

“Harrington!”

A crash catches his attention, and he turns and sees Hargrove smash a store window with the frying pan.

“Harri– _Steve_!”

Steve changes direction and goes for the window, but it's costing him precious time. Hargrove, too, is wasting seconds trying to clear the sides of the window from too much glass before he starts climbing through. Steve is half a second behind him, and basically tackles him through the remains of the window. He falls on the other boy, ignoring his muffled curses, and scrambles to get up. There's a snarl, and then something's latching on to his left leg, and he blindly hits at it with his improvised club. The chair leg breaks over the demodogs's head and his leg is freed, but something claws at his other leg as he's trying to scramble away. He throws the remaining piece of chair at the new arrival and looks around desperately for something else he can use as a weapon. He doesn't notice his own litany of “ _Shit shit shit SHIT SHIT_ ” until he's practically screaming it.

Then, a dull _smack_ and a loud whine. His head snaps back to the broken window, at which he sees Billy Hargrove nail a second demodog in the torso with the frying pan. The demodog flies into the wall, next to its – now unmoving – packmate, and Hargrove is there and hitting it over the head before it can get up.

The two remaining demodogs are halfway through the window by now, but seem to be actually _hesitating_ when Hargrove whirls around and _screams_ at them, brandishing the frying like a club in a one-handed grip. Steve – who is finally free of demodogs – is getting up, and there's a teeny tiny part of his brain, that is not occupied with survival instinct and terror, that tries to take in what he’s seeing and is convinced that _this is not real, no way this is happening for real_.

“Get _moving_ , Harrington!”

They're in what looks like some kind of office space, and since Hargrove has the only weapon, Steve leaves him by the window and runs to the back, tries the only door he can see. It opens to a hallway with two more doors and a staircase leading up.

“Stairs!” Steve yells back at Hargrove, who's bashing a third demodog right in it's flower-looking face as the fourth is trying to attach itself to one of his legs. Steve makes a split-second decision and runs over, and for the second time this night kicks a demodog off Billy Hargrove. Hearing a not-so distant howl, he groans when he looks out through the busted window and spots several more dark shapes on the other end of the darkened street.

“Move!” He pushes Hargrove towards the door. “Move now!”

Together, they run through the door and slam it shut behind them. The handle is busted and it doesn't close properly, and Billy's grimacing when he's pushing back at the door and a demodog seemingly throws itself against it, rattling it.

“We need–”

“On it!”

And Steve is off. The door further away in the hallway is most likely the door to outside, and there's no way in hell he's touching that one. Throwing himself at the other door, the one that's directly opposite to the one Hargrove's pressed up against, he stumbles into another darkened office-looking room, looking around wildly for something –

_There!_ What looks like a filing cabinet is standing against one wall, and that's exactly what they need right now. With strength he didn't know he had, he pulls the cabinet from the wall. It screeches against the floor, but the demodogs and Hargrove are making enough noise out in the hallway to drown it out. It only moves a couple of inches, and then Steve has to throw his weight against it again to make it move – and again, and again. Painstakingly, he pushes it to the doorway, where it gets stuck on the threshold and won't move any further.

“Move, you heavy piece of sh–”

Steve slams his shoulder into the offending piece of furniture and somehow manages to tip it over.

“Heads up!”

“Wha– _shit_!”

Hargrove throws himself to the side just in time to avoid being crushed. The filing cabinet slams into the edge of the other door and slides down to the floor, effectively holding it closed. Hargrove looks from the door to Steve and back again with wide eyes from the floor where he ended up, before something slams into the door from the other side. The top half of the door creaks and moves a little, and they look at each other.

Time to move.

Steve's pulling Billy up before he can give it any further thought, and they move up the stairs; to the second floor, and through a door – one that Steve gets open simply by throwing his body weight at it, he’s getting quite good at that by now – at the end of a short hallway. They're in another office, and they wordlessly decide on a bookcase by the far wall. It takes the both of them to move it in front of the door, and then they slide the desk against the bookcase, just to make sure nothing will be able to get through.

There is no other door in the room, so it's as secure as they can possibly make it at the moment. Billy is panting as he slides down to the floor, holding his hurt arm against his body and not letting go of the frying pan with his good hand, while Steve leans over the desk and puts his forehead against it, trying to will his heart to slow down.

“Shit”, he gasps.

A hoarse laugh from the floor. “You can say that again.”

They both tense up when they hear a crash from downstairs, but there are no sounds of murderous demon dogs coming up the stairs, and eventually the sounds lessen. Both of them listen intently for any indication of danger, but things seem to calm down. When it's been quiet for a few minutes, Steve whispers, “You think they left?”

“Don't know”, Hargrove answers, just as quietly.

Steve slowly sits down next to him where he's leaning against the desk, back against the barricaded door. Dragging his fingers through his sweaty hair, he coughs and pulls the shirt that had ridden down back up over his face.

“That was ...” Billy starts.

“Yeah.”

A short laugh, that turns into a cough. Then, “And you laughed at the frying pan.”

Billy's voice sounds almost teasing, and maybe it's the relief of having survived, but it's not as annoying to Steve as it usually is. He replies in kind.

“I did _not_ laugh at the frying pan.”

“You did. You laughed at it in your head.”

Oh yeah, definitely teasing.

“I did not. That's a very good frying pan.”

“Damn right it is.”

And great, now Hargrove sounds _smug_. Better do something about that. Steve can play the smug game, too. So, giddy with the relief of having cheated death – again – he smirks and says, “So, hey, Hargrove ... did I hear you call me _Steve_ back there?”

That does it. Billy's tensing up slightly, and a frown is back on his face, although it doesn't look as menacing as it did just hours ago. Of course, back then Steve hadn't faced a pack of demodogs with the guy.

“What? No–yeah, 'cause you didn't fucking listen to Harrington, _Harrington_.”

“Come on, _Billy_ , we kicked demodog ass together, I think we're on first name basis by now.”

Billy is silent in the dark and Steve is starting to wonder if he maybe took it too far, when the other boy says, somewhat hesitantly, “Speaking of ... kicking. Uhm. That, back there?” And Billy is resolutely looking straight ahead. “That was a good one.”

Steve is hit by the realization that that's probably as close to a “thanks” as he'll ever get out of Billy Hargrove. He also realizes that the blonde is more than uncomfortable about it, and that Steve holds all the power right now. Steve _could_ use it against him – make him uncomfortable or angry, or tease him about it, or even blame this whole situation on him. But Billy kinda saved Steve, as well. So he clears his throat, licks his lips.

“Yeah, well. You're pretty skilled with a skillet, so.”

Billy puffs out his chest a little, raises the frying pan from the floor in a weak victory gesture. “Yeah?”

This time, Steve doesn't fight the smile.

“Yeah.”

*

They sit in companionable silence together for a while, side by side and staring straight ahead. Steve is exhausted. His head hurts and his jaw throbs from Hargrove's punch – which feels like a lifetime ago, but is in fact just a couple of hours – and he's pretty sure he's got a bruise on his torso, because the skin there is tender. Also, he notes with a detached sort of interest, the left leg of his pants is ripped.

Stretching his leg out and twisting it to get a better look at it, he catches Billy's attention.

“Your leg okay?”

Steve pulls up the fabric and inspects his leg. There are a couple of scratches, but only two of them even broke the skin and they have already stopped bleeding.

“Yeah. My pants took most of the damage.”

“Aww. Your poor pants.”

“Yeah. Seems like the Upside Down and clothes just don't go that well together.”

There's a snort from the other boy.

“God, Harrington, are you even aware of what words come out of your mouth sometimes?”

Steve frowns in incomprehension before what he just said and how it could be interpreted catches up with him. Good thing it's dark, because Steve's pretty sure he's getting red in the face.

“I mean–”

Billy chuckles. “Yeah, sure you did.”

Steve can feel his headache getting worse, and figures that it's probably Hargrove's fault. A deflection is in order. He motions to the other boy's jeans, which is _also_ ripped from where a demodog was trying to gnaw at him while he was fighting them downstairs.

“How about you?”

Billy shrugs. “Just a scratch. It couldn't bite through jeans.”

Steve opens his mouth to say something, but instead chooses to just turn to Billy and _look_ at him. When Billy glances over, Steve pointedly looks down at Billy's hurt arm, which is bandaged under the decidedly ripped sleeve of his denim jacket, which a demodog most definitely bit through very recently. Billy has the decency to look a bit sheepish.

“I mean–”

“Yeah”, Steve drawls and grins, delighted that he can throw the other's words back at him, ” _sure_ you did.”

Billy's eyes narrows. His left eye is a bit swollen, which again reminds Steve that they were fighting each other only hours ago, and there's a small bleeding cut in his hairline.

“You look like a total mess”, Steve comments before he can stop himself.

“Gee, I wonder why”, Billy comments drily. “We fought, then I played monster dog chew toy, and then you tackled me through a window.”

That's ... true. And slightly worrying. Trying to be inconspicuous, Steve glances over at the other boy to see if there are any other injuries. The inconspicuous thing doesn't seem to work, as Billy pushes at him and says, annoyed, “God, you're such a fucking mom. I'm _fine_. Worry about yourself.”

“I _am_ worrying about myself. What _ever_ will I do if you're not in top shape and ready to defend me with your trusty frying pan the next time we get attacked?”

“Shut up.”

Steve gives a little smile and sways where he's sitting. It's surprisingly easy to trade banter with Hargrove like this, in the dark. He blames it on his exhaustion. He's so tired, and his head is killing him.

“So”, Billy says after a moment of silence, “going into town was a great idea, huh?”

“Hmm.” Honestly, they could have been attacked by demodogs anywhere. At least here, they have shelter.

As if Billy's a mind reader, he continues, “With those demodogs still out there, maybe we should stay put for a while. Rest up, you know?”

Steve finds himself nodding, and the motion makes him feel like his head isn't screwed on right; like it might fall off at any second. There's a sigh to the side of him, and then Hargrove says, “I'll take first watch.”

Steve looks over at him. He can only see the other boy's eyes, since the rest of his face is still hidden under the improvised face mask, and he can't tell what look that is on Billy's face.

“You sure?” he asks, because he’s suddenly too tired to turn down that offer.

“Yeah”. Billy nods. “I'll wake you in a while.”

And this is crazy, this is– Just hours ago, Steve would have never even _considered_ the thought of trusting Billy Hargrove to watch over him while he was sleeping – to trust him to keep him safe, and to basically put his life in Billy's hands. But now? He's tired, he's in pain and it's been a long night. They're in the Upside Down after all – it's not so surprising that enemies turn temporary allies during these circumstances, right?

Right.

So Steve doesn't argue. He just lies down on the floor and curls up halfway under the desk. He's asleep before he can give it more thought.

*

He doesn't dream.

*

When he wakes it feels like he's underwater, like every impression is muted. He is cold and uncomfortable, lying on a hard floor, and he blinks his eyes without seeing anything. A tendril of fear stabs through him at this blindness, before he realizes that he _can_ see, it's just dark.

The knowledge of where he is and what has happened does _not_ hit him suddenly – he's fully aware of it, even in-between sleeping and being awake; as if the Upside Down is all he's ever known, even though he's only been here for a few hours. He's not even fully awake, yet he knows that if he looks up, he'll see Billy Hargrove sit beside him and stare out into the dark. This is their reality now. The real world they left behind feels like the dream; distant and hard to grasp.

How long has he been asleep? It can't have been long – it's still dark.

Stretching, he's yawning under the shirt that acts like a face mask, and hears rustling close by. He looks up, and there's Billy – sitting curled up in the corner between the desk and the wall, knees drawn up and his good arm around his legs. The face mask/sleeve that was covering his face is pulled down, and there's an unlit cigarette between his lips. He's watching Steve, and that should honestly feel a lot weirder than it does.

Steve licks his lips and wishes for water.

“Mornin' sleepy-head”, Billy rasps, and Steve frowns at how hoarse his voice is.

“Is it? How long did I sleep?”

“A couple of hours. It's ...” He nods at Steve’s wrist watch, and Steve absent-mindedly wonders what happened to Billy’s own. “... around seven, I think?”

“Jesus.”

They haven't even been here for half a day, and it already feels like forever. Steve drags himself to his feet and stretches, pads over to the window and looks out through the grimy glass. Nothing has changed, it still looks like a nightmare.

“They still there?” Billy asks from his corner, and Steve tries to focus his eyes on the darkest corners of the street outside. Something might have moved in the shadows, but he's not sure. He stares at the spot until his eyes water, and only then does he reply.

“I don't know. Maybe.”

He returns to the door and sits down on the desk. Raises his eyebrows at the cigarette in Billy's mouth, and also noting that there's a shadow on Billy's jaw that might be a bruise, that probably matches the one Steve is pretty sure is on his own face. Billy catches him looking, and smiles like a shark around the cig.

“Oh, _so_ sorry, where are my manners?” Billy mutters and digs in his jacket's front pocket for a beaten up pack of cigarettes that he throws to Steve. Steve catches it – barely – and shakes a cigarette out of it before he throws the pack back. Billy pockets it, and then returns to his previous position while Steve pulls down the shirt over his face to put the cig in his mouth. And then he waits.

And waits.

“Hey”, he say after a while.

When Billy meets his eyes, Steve makes a “well?”-motion and gestures to his mouth.

“What?” Hargrove says, sounding honestly bewildered.

“What am I gonna do, _chew_ on it?” Steve says. ”You got a light, or what?”

Billy laughs, and it sounds so weird – coming from _him_ , of all people, and in _this_ situation. It is a _real_ laugh, too; not one that's born of sarcasm or one that contains a treat. He laughs until he starts coughing, and then shakes his head.

“Ah, no. I lost my lighter.”

Steve huffs disbelievingly and rips the cigarette out of his mouth. But he doesn't throw it away, which was his first instinct – instead he pockets it. For later, he tells himself. For when they get out of here.

“Funny”, he mutters.

“Yeah, I thought so”, Billy replies between clenched teeth.

Steve takes a good look at him. Billy's shoulders are drawn up, and if Steve's eyes aren't deceiving him, the other boy's shivering. He looks pale, even in the relative darkness of the room. Steve squints.

“How's your arm?”

“Peachy.”

“Billy–”

“It's fine, Harrington. I'm gonna get some rest.”

“... okay? So ... I'll wake you in a couple of hours, then?”

Billy makes a non-committal noise and lies down on the floor in his corner, curling up on his side with his back to the wall, closing his eyes.

Steve pinches the bridge of his nose. _He's not gonna say anything, he's not gonna say anything, he's not gonna s–_

“Fuck it”, he mutters to himself and walks over and nudges Billy with his foot while shrugging off his jacket. “Get up!”

Billy glares at him from the floor. “What the fuck, Harrington?!”

“Get _up_.”

Steve's gotten his jacket off and pulls at the hem of his long-sleeved sweater. Once he's gotten it off, he bundles it up and throws it at Billy's face. Billy catches it, with his mouth open as if he can't believe what's happening.

“Put that on, it's fucking cold.”

“I'm not gonn–”

Steve gestures to himself, wearing a T–shirt and holding his own much warmer jacket. ”Unlike _some_ , I dress appropriately for the season. A fucking _denim jacket_ , really?? And are you allergic to buttons or something? Jesus Christ. Just take the sweater, Hargrove.”

Billy still looks like he's gonna object, but Steve doesn't give him a chance.

“If you freeze to death, then who will I trip to get away from the demodogs next time, huh? I need you alive.”

Billy's incredulous expression melts away and turns into a smirk, which Steve is suddenly desperate to wash off his face.

“... for now”, he finishes lamely.

“Whatever”, Billy says, but hesitantly starts to remove his jacket. He manages just fine until he gets to his arm, at which point he winces and bites down hard, no doubt to stop himself from making a sound. Steve is itching to help – _and when did that happen, honestly?_ – but doesn't, and so he's treated to a shirtless Billy Hargrove for the second time in only a few hours time.

Billy has bled through the bandages, but there is no blood running down his arm, so the bleeding must have stopped, at least. From what Steve can see of the skin at the edges of the bandages, it is red and much darker than the rest of Billy’s skin, which looks unnaturally pale in comparison.

“Shit”, Steve comments. “Billy–”

Billy pulls the sweater over his head and looks down while trying to get his bad arm through a sleeve.

“Nothing we can do about it, Harrington. Let it go.”

True. It doesn't look good, but what can they do about it? Nothing. There's nothing here – no water, and no supplies. Literally their only chance of survival is to get out of the Upside Down, and they can't even do that as long as the demodogs are outside.

Steve's sweater looks out of place on Billy and makes him look different – it has vertical stripes on it and looks like something that the Billy Hargrove Steve knows wouldn't be caught dead in. Billy seems to think so too, as he looks down at himself and wrinkles his nose disdainfully.

“Hey, don't diss the sweater, man”, Steve comments. “I'll have you know it's the height of fashion.”

“Sure. Whatever you need to tell yourself to wear it.”

“That's what people usually do, you know”, Steve snaps and gets in front of Billy, holding up his jacket so he can thread his arms through it. ”We actually _wear clothes_. It's probably a foreign concept for you, since I've literally _never_ seen you button up your shirts properly but–”

“What?” Billy interrupts, grimacing when his arm hurt him. “And deprive the ladies of Hawkins of the view?”

Steve gives in to an overwhelming urge to cuff Hargrove over the head, and while Billy's busy cursing and rubbing the sore spot (ridiculous; Steve barely touched him), Steve grabs the other boy’s jacket and starts buttoning it up.

Billy says nothing about it, and lets him finish.

“There. Now go to sleep, I can't look at your ugly face anymore.”

“Yes _mom_.”

“Shut the fuck up.”

And it's a weird thing, to be arguing with Billy Hargrove without actually meaning it. But it's not, Steve muses, weirder than the situation they're in. Or weirder than the fact that just a few minutes later, he's sitting on the desk and looking down at Billy Hargrove, curled up sleeping on the floor.

They say that people look younger when they're asleep. Billy Hargrove doesn't look younger, he just looks ... different. Like another version of himself.

*

Steve is pretty sure that he's a restless sleeper. He often wakes up in the morning, tangled in his blankets or his sheets and in a completely different position than he was in when he went to sleep.

Billy though? He doesn't move, and doesn't make a sound. The only indication that he's actually sleeping is that his breathing evens out. Fifteen minutes after he fell asleep, he wakes up. Steve wouldn't have noticed if he wasn't looking straight at him at the time, because he doesn't jerk awake or make any noise; he just snaps his eyes open and stops breathing, letting his eyes dart around the room. When he finds no threat, he closes his eyes again, and soon falls back asleep.

It happens twice more; once when Steve's shoe scrapes against the floor when he snuck up to the window to see if he could spot any demodogs (he didn't see any), and then again when he’d been sitting in the same position for too long, and needed a stretch.

It's like Billy wakes up to every sound he hears – but to be fair, he falls back asleep pretty fast, too. Still, Steve resolves to be as quiet as he can for the remaining hours, so the blonde can get some uninterrupted sleep.

*

Steve nudges Hargrove awake a little after nine in the morning. It's not nearly enough to be well-rested, he knows, but on the other hand – the longer they stay here, the weaker they get. His lips are dry, and he wants something to drink. He knows the thirst will just get worse, so they really have to get moving.

He's spent the last hour by the window, staring out at the street below, only occasionally glancing over at Billy sleeping in the other end of the room.

Now, though, Billy's blinking awake.

“Jesus”, he mutters, rubbing at his eyes. His hand is shaking.

“You–” Steve starts, but is interrupted by a cough. He clears his throat. “You okay?”

Billy's looking up at him blearily from the floor. “Oh yeah. Never better.”

He holds out his hand and Steve takes it, pulling him to his feet. Almost like they’re friends. Only afterwards do they seem to realize what they just did, and it makes them falter a bit.

“So, uhm”, Steve says, dragging his fingers through his hair. “We should get going.”

“Yeah.” Billy gives a little nod, and shudders. When Steve looks him over suspiciously, he adds, “It's cold, man.”

It _is_ cold, like it's been since they got here. It's still as dark, too. Seems like there's no sun in the Upside Down. Steve wishes he was surprised by this, but he's really not.

Billy's stomach lets out a grumble, and Steve smiles under his face mask and raises his eyebrows.

“What?” Billy says, gesturing with his good hand in the air. “I'm a growing boy, and these accommodations don't seem to include breakfast.”

Huffing, Steve comments, “Scandalous. I'm taking my business elsewhere.”

Steve wishes he could see Billy's face just then, because he's pretty sure the other boy is smiling.

“So, any dogs out there?”

Steve shakes his head. “Not that I've seen. I've been keeping watch for an hour but I haven't seen any.”

Billy carefully touches his bad arm and winces. “Guess we'll have to risk it.”

What are the options, really? Stay here? There's no way that would end well. They'd die of thirst eventually, or – and Steve frowns at this and watches Billy out of the corner of his eye – succumb to their injuries. No, they can't stay.

“Guess so.”

All their conversation is hushed, because they are still afraid to make too much noise. When they move the furniture from the door, Steve does most of the work, since Billy only has one good arm. When the door is free, they open it and carefully peer out into the empty hallway before they venture out.

They sneak downstairs and see that the door that they blocked a couple of hours ago has been broken at the top half, but not enough for a demodog to be able to have gotten through. There's no way they can move the filing cabinet, though – it's wedged against the door – so they climb over it and try the third door.

Like Steve suspected, it leads outside, and after they've gotten it open – it was a little jammed – they step out into the street.

Steve stops there, and listens for anything out of the ordinary. He can't see or hear anything, so maybe they're in the clear for now. Billy's holding his frying pan in a tight grip, and he takes a couple of steps to the side, to peer in through the broken window. Looking back at Steve, he holds up two fingers and mouths “Two dead”.

At least they know that the damned things don't come back, and that shouldn't make Steve feel so relieved, but it does. Because honestly, zombie demodogs would not be entirely out of the realm of possibility at this point.

They're quiet and careful as they move on, keeping close to the walls of the buildings and crouching down behind the overgrown cars that are lining the streets if they even _think_ that they hear something that could be a threat.

The center of town makes Steve's skin crawl with a vague feeling of uneasiness – it’s something he can't quite put his finger on. He's lived in Hawkins since he was four years old, and he has always thought of it as home. Seeing it like this – dark and empty and abandoned and _wrong_ – is disconcerting, and it leaves a bad taste in his mouth.

Of course, that might just be the air.

*

While Billy's got his makeshift weapon, Steve's hands feel empty. Which is why, once they've cleared downtown, Steve puts a hand on Billy's shoulder and mutely points to a side street. Billy's raising his eyebrows questioningly, and Steve leans in closer to whisper, “Hardware store.”

Billy gets it – his eyes light up, and Steve just _knows_ that he's grinning under his mask.

Hawkins' Hardwares is not a place that Steve has visited frequently in the past, but when they enter it (through a surprisingly unlocked front door) it quickly becomes his favorite store in the whole world.

Sure, it's dim and overgrown with vines, and sure, the floor is slick with something oily, and sure, a lot of things on the shelves and displays are either just empty containers or in bad shape and unusable – they could have really used breathing masks or respirators, but the ones they find break apart like wet paper when they touch them – but the things that aren't? Can be _really_ useful.

Billy gleefully exchanges his frying pan for an axe (“You're _abandoning_ your frying pan?” “I'm not abandoning her, I'm letting her rest. She deserves better!”), after running his thumb over the edge of it and deeming it worthy enough. Steve longs for a bat, but the closest thing he can find is a metal crowbar which feels sturdy enough. It'll do. They can't find any knives with intact handles, so instead they each pocket a screwdriver. Because it doesn't hurt to have a backup.

Armed thusly, and not wanting to stick around one place for too long, they keep going.

 


	4. Chapter 4

It's just before noon, according to Steve's watch, when they've snuck through Hawkins and gotten to the outskirts of town, where the woods grow more prominent and the houses are scarcer. They hunker down between the wall of a house and a tipped-over trash can to plan how to go forward.

“Right”, Steve whispers. “Hopper said that he was going to the other spot, which was on the other side of the quarry. If we were driving, the easiest way would be that way.” He points to the road leading away from the area.

“But we're not driving”, Billy points out, as if Steve's stupid.

“I _am_ aware of that”, Steve answers slowly, because if _anyone’s_ stupid in this conversation, it's not Steve. ”The fastest way if we're _walking_ , is that way.”

He points to the woods. Then he sits back on his haunches and waits.

“So you're saying”, Billy coughs. “You're saying that we can either go by the road, which will take longer ...?”

“Or through the woods, which will save us some time, yeah”, Steve finishes. “But, you know. It's the woods.”

“So is that”, Billy points out and nods towards the road. “Only with a strip of road through it.”

True. No matter what route they decide on, they'll still have to go through the woods, one way or another. Steve could have made the decision; just kept going, without asking Billy, but ... He basically talked Billy into going into town in the first place, and that got them attacked by demodogs. It also got them weapons, but ... They’re in this together now, so they should decide what to do next together, too. There’s too much at stake for Steve to make this decision on his own. If they can't get to the quarry and find the gate, they're as good as dead. Unless they go back through town and try the first gate, where the first demodogs were. If they even make it that far.

“We'll go through the woods”, Hargrove says, and rips Steve from his gloomy thoughts.

“Yeah?”

Billy doesn't look as sure as he sounds, but he's nodding, and then quickly looking at Steve. “Yeah. I mean, you know the way, right?”

It's Steve's turn to nod. “Yeah. Me and my friends, we used to sneak up there all the time when we were kids. Way back before I got my driver's license.”

Billy snorts. “Such a rebel, Harrington. Sneaking off to the _quarry_.” He somehow makes the word sound as boring as if he’d said ‘office’ or ‘convenience store’.

Steve looks straight at him. “You don't know what we _did_ at the quarry.”

“What did you do, then? Skip rocks?”

Steve doesn't answer, instead he stands up and starts walking. He can hear Billy coming up behind him. “Harrington. What did you do at the quarry?”

He keeps walking.

“Come _on_. Harrington.”

*

The sky overhead isn't light by any definition, but at least it’s enough to make sure they’re not stumbling around blind. Compared to the town, though, the woods are darker. There are no strange light sources, for one. And among the trees, they see less of the grey sky – the branches are slithering upwards, like the vines that seem to grow on everything, making it harder for the low light of the sky to reach them. The forest floor is damp, but not like after rain – the ground and the tree trunks are black, and when Steve touches a tree, his fingers come back covered in something thick and black.

It would look like blood if it was red, he thinks, and immediately regrets it.

There's more of the spores in the air here, or maybe it just seems like it – either way, he coughs more, even though his mouth and nose are still covered. His throat is dry, his tongue feels like it's made of wood, and his eyes are itching.

Billy isn't faring any better, from what he can see. The other boy is wearing a constant frown, and sometimes when they take a break, he’s leaning against a tree when he thinks that Steve isn't looking.

It's slightly uphill, but it's not steep, and it definitely shouldn't make them pant the way they both are, especially since they haven't been walking in the woods for very long. They’re both relatively fit, normally, so maybe the air lacks the right amount of oxygen or something.

Steve's walking in front, since he knows the way, and Billy follows. None of them are talking. There's almost like a fog in the air, which makes the trees look blurrier the further away they are.

That's probably why he doesn't see it, at first.

It looks like a tree, is the thing. With long gangly limbs and a torso like a tree trunk, so when it's standing still in the mist, it blends in with the forest.

Until it moves, and Steve's eyes are instantly drawn to it.

And even when he's looking straight at it, it takes him a second to take in what he's seeing. When he realizes what it is, all air leaves his lungs and fear grips his heart. He stares at it and _can't move_ ; is frozen with terror even as it takes another step towards them. Its head moves, like it's looking at them, and then its face opens up, like the demodogs' but _worse_ , because this is bigger, and it's on two legs, and it could have been a human, could have been a tree–

“Holy _shit_!” Billy says behind him, and it snaps Steve out of it. He tears his eyes from the demogorgon (and he'd forgotten how terrifying it is, how could he have forgotten??) to look at Billy, who's taking a step back while raising his axe, as if preparing himself for a fight.

And Steve would laugh, if he had the time. Because it's laughable to believe that the two of them – tired, injured, armed only with hand tools – could ever take on a demogorgon. The only chance they have right now is to run. He wants to say all of this, but in the end he only has time for “No”, before he grabs Billy by his injured wrist and pulls him back, starts running back to where they came from.

“Wha–” Billy starts, but there's a sound behind them that is half scream, half shriek, which makes Billy jerk into motion. Steve lets go of him, trusting that he'll run on his own.

*

Time is a strange thing. Humans _invented_ time, in a way, and yet it exists outside of everything. Time passes, and does not stop for anything. But _perception_ of time? That's a different thing entirely.

Steve feels as if he has been running forever. Like it's all he's ever done, _all he'll ever do_. Running stretches as far back as he can remember, and it's all he knows. For a moment that lasts for an eternity, he can't even remember why he's running, or what he's running from. It's just ... trees, roots, _run_ , vines, Billy, _run_ , a screech somewhere behind them, _run_ , and letting his legs take him as far away as he can, as fast as he can ...

And then he can feel himself tripping on something, and time speeds up at the same time as everything around him slows down. He falls, tries to catch himself with his hands, and hits his head on something hard. It makes a sound like a hollow _thunk_ , and all of a sudden he's in pain, and trying to get up onto his hands and knees, and there's something dark and blurry right in front of him. Something that's moving, or _opening up_ , something that–

And there's a _whoosh_ of sour air, and suddenly thousands of spores are getting in his eyes and his nose and his mouth (when did he lose his mask?), and he can't breathe, he can't _see_ , he doesn't know which way he was going. Maybe he's screaming, maybe he's just gasping for air, but the last thing he feels is a strong grip on his shoulder, yanking him up. He rolls on the ground, tries to get away, and then –

– and then nothing.

*

He's barely aware of his surroundings. There's a sound he can't identify, but feels like it should be familiar, and something bumps against his head. Or is it him, bumping his head into something? Is he moving? He's not breathing. When he tries to draw breath, his chest catches on fire. He doesn't stay awake long.

*

The next time, he doesn't wake up as much as he startles into awareness. He's terrified, but can't remember why; his heart is beating madly in his chest and it feels like it’s going to climb out of his throat, and it _hurts_. His head is throbbing in time with his heartbeat and there's a stabbing pain in his eyes. Everything is dark and he can't see; doesn't know where he is or what's happened.

He's trying to speak, but the air won't pass through his vocal cords; he chokes on it and barely has time to throw himself to the side before he's vomiting.

On his hands and knees, grasping for purchase on a slick surface, his eyes tear up at the pain and a pathetic whine pass between his lips. There's the sound of steps behind him, and a voice that he feels like he should recognize – but he doesn't, he _doesn't_. Someone touches him and he flinches away, and that relights the fire in his chest and it _hurts_ , it hurts so bad.

“Please”, he tries to say, but he doesn't have enough air. And then he's coughing, and he gags even though he's empty by now, and then finally he's all out of energy, all out of air, and he goes under again.

*

And then he’s gasping, fingers clawing at his throat, and there's a noise buzzing in his head which sounds both close and far away.

“–eve!”

And Steve wakes up, remembering running and falling and for a second he thinks he's still in the woods and that there's a demogorgon coming after him. So when someone shakes his shoulder, he reacts out of instinct and strikes out. He hits something and takes what might be his only chance to scramble away.

“ _Ow_! Shit, fuck– _Steve_! Calm down, Jesus Christ ...”

Steve's back hits something solid and he can't get any further. It makes him gasp in panic, but something sticks in his throat and he starts coughing. His eyes water, his mouth taste like death. The hand on his shoulder is back, but it's a gentle touch this time and he only flinches a little. In the middle of what feels like hacking up a lung, Steve realizes that his hands aren't gripping slippery vegetation and that the voice that's currently cursing him out sounds very unlike the shriek of a monster.

He blinks, and although he can't see anything in the darkness, that sounds like–

“... Billy?”

The cursing stops. “Yeah, it's me.”

“What–?” He is interrupted by coughing again; it's like someone has stuffed sandpaper down his throat, and every breath hurts.

“Hey, calm down. Calm down.”

The grip on his shoulder disappears – instead a hand appears on his back, rubbing soothing circles that actually manage to calm Steve down somewhat; enough to draw a wheezing breath, and then another.

“What happened?” he rasps. “Where's th– the demogorgon?”

”The what? You mean that thing back there?” Billy's voice replies, and Steve blinks a couple of times because it's pitch black and not being able to see anything is disconcerting. He rubs at his eyes, but Billy grabs at his wrists and pulls his hands away from his face.

“Hey, man, quit it. You'll make it worse.”

Steve's head is killing him, and every breath is a struggle.

“Wh– Make _what_ worse?” he manages to gasp before he has to cough again.

Billy lets go of one of his wrists, but holds on to the other, as if ... as if he knows that Steve is freaking out.

“You fell”, he starts in a low voice. “In the woods, when we were running from that ... thing.”

_Demogorgon_ , Steve thinks, but he's trying to hold back a cough so he can't speak. Billy pauses for just a second too long for him to sound indifferent about the whole thing.

“You fell into some kind of ... I don't know what it was, it was like a black pile of goo or something, and when you fell on it, it started spewing out all that ... fake-snow or whatever. It got in your eyes –“

Steve feels something cold wash over him.

“– and, well, it looks kind of weird, man. I just don't think you should be touching it.”

Steve grabs a hold of Billy's wrist, refuses to let him go even as the other boy half-heartedly tugs on it.

“What do you mean, ‘weird’? Why can't I fucking _see_?”

“Calm down! There's, like, black stuff at the corners of your eyes, and, um, stuck to your eyelashes. They look red, too. Your eyes, I mean.”

The sudden fear makes Steve nauseous – a vague memory of throwing up appears in his brain, and he wonders if he'll do it again. He feels like he will. He's panicking.

“So I'm _blind_!?”

He's clawing at Billy's arm without noticing it, until Billy puts a hand on his and _holds_ it, and repeats, “Steve! Calm down!”

“How can I be calm when I'm fucking _blind_?!” And he coughs, and he can't breathe, but he doesn't care because he's blind, he's _blind_ , he _can't see_ –

Something is moving in front of him and he shuts up, concentrating on following the movement.

“Can you see this?” Billy's voice is closer.

“I ... no, but there's ... something.”

“Good, that's good.” A sigh, followed by a cough. “Then you aren't blind. I think ... I think that you should just rinse your eyes out. That would probably help.”

Steve gives a slightly hysterical laugh which naturally ends up with him coughing. “Rinse with _what_? There's nothing here!”

Billy is silent for a few seconds too long, and when he speaks, his voice is subdued.

“I know.”

It sounds kind of like “I'm sorry”, but that doesn't make any sense because a) Billy Hargrove does not apologize for anything and b) the demogorgon and the horrors of the Upside Down is in no way Billy’s fault.

Something else just occurs to Steve, and he sits up straighter despite the pain that shoots through his head when he does.

“The demogorgon! What–” And he's interrupted with coughing, yet again. “What happened to it? How did we get away?!”

Billy clears his throat before speaking.

“You fell, I got you up, and that demo-thing was after us, but ... we weren't actually that far away from one of those houses at the edge of the woods. I hauled your heavy ass inside and got us down into the basement – that's where we are now. I don't know what happened to it.”

A pause, then, “It didn't try to go after us once we got inside, anyway. And I haven't seen it outside either, since we got here.”

“What ...” And Steve's getting real tired of not being able to speak without coughing. “How long ...?”

“It's like–” A rustle, then Steve flinches when Billy takes a hold of his wrist and twists it slightly, probably to get a better look at Steve's watch, “ten to six.”

“What?!”

Steve's head is spinning. He's in pain, he's half blind and he is absolutely parched. (He's hungry too, but the thirst is overshadowing the rest of his aches and pains at the moment.) And now Billy's telling him that he's been unconscious for six hours?

_Why is Billy still here?_

Steve voices this question out loud before his brain catches up with his mouth. Billy gives a raspy laugh before he drawls, “You're the one who knows the way, Harrington.”

Not true. Steve _knows_ that he told Billy where the other gate was – the other side of the quarry, somewhere. _Steve_ doesn’t even know any more than that. And sure, maybe Billy didn't know the shorter way through the woods, but anyone can follow a road. Billy could have left. More than that, Billy could have left him back when Steve fell in the woods – but he didn't. Not only did he get him up – he somehow got him to safety, even with one arm out of commission. Speaking of which–

“You're warm,” Steve says and frowns, because the hand that's still on his wrist _is_ warm, and that doesn't make sense because the air is still chilly and Billy's been freezing this whole time.

Billy pulls his hand away, or tries to at least – Steve takes a hold of the sleeve of his sweater and pulls him closer, and blindly throws out his other hand. He catches the other boy right in the face, making him swear and duck away, but not before Steve can feel the heat that's radiating off him.

“You have a fever”, he states.

“Yeah, well”, Billy snaps, trying to sound unconcerned and failing, “you probably have a concussion. Not much we can do about that now, is there?”

And there really isn't. _Fuck_. Steve closes his eyes and groans. Licks his lips.

“I'd kill for a glass of water.”

Billy hums in agreement. A few heartbeats pass, then he moves and sits down on the floor next to Steve. They're shoulder to shoulder, and this way there's no way for Billy to hide that he's shivering. Steve wonders if that was maybe the point.

They sit in companionable silence – or maybe they’re just exhausted – which is only broken by the occasional cough. They should get up, they really should, but ...

“Hey”, Steve says. “Do we still have the weapons?”

“Uh”, Billy says, “I think the ... we have the screwdrivers?”

“Fuck”, Steve says and leans his head back against the wall, fighting the urge to rub at his eyes.

“Yeah”, Billy says, and Steve can _hear_ the smirk in his voice. “So we'll have to _screw_ them to death next time.”

Steve groans, because what else can he do?

“We’re basically _screwed_ ”, Billy continues.

“Please stop”, Steve whispers. “That was _so_ bad. We're gonna die here, and you're cracking bad jokes.”

He regrets it as soon as he says it. Neither of them has ever mentioned the possibility that they're going to die out loud before, even though Steve is sure they've both been thinking it. It kinda puts a dampener on the mood.

They sit in silence for a while longer.

“I threw the axe at it.”

“What?” Steve says, momentarily confused, because he'd been lost in thoughts about dying.

“Yeah”, Billy says and changes position at his side; slides down a bit. “I aimed at its head, but I think I got it in like ... the thigh?”

“The … the demogorgon? Really??”

“Mm. It screamed like a banshee.”

“Wh–”, Steve starts but has to cough and start again. “What did you do then?”

Billy huffs. “What do you _think_ I did? I ran like hell.”

Steve manages to draw enough breath to chuckle, but it's somewhat of a struggle. Billy laughs softly, then continues, “When I heard you scream? It was ... well, it was a good thing that you _did_ scream, actually, or I might have kept on running. Left you there.”

There is no threat in those words, even though Billy is probably trying to make it sound like there is. Steve _hmm_ s, and tries to put it together in his head. The headache makes it hard.

“Hey”, he says after they've been sitting in relative silence for what might have been a minute. “Why _didn't_ you leave me there?”

And this is honestly so strange to Steve. Not even 24 hours ago, they basically wanted to kill each other. Now they're sitting shoulder to shoulder in a basement after saving each other’s lives. _Unreal_.

“I may be an asshole”, Billy says, stiffly, “but I'm not _that_ much of an asshole.”

He slides down a little further against the wall, and Steve thinks that he's probably frowning.

“I guess not”, Steve muses. When he realizes how that sounded, he adds, “Sorry.”

He can feel Billy shrug beside him.

“Don't be.” A beat, then – “You didn’t leave me, either. There. In the beginning.”

“No”, Steve says, and means what comes next; “I wouldn’t do that.”

And this is his life now, Steve supposes. He's in the Upside Down and having a heart-to-heart with Billy Hargrove, and they're probably gonna die here.

He feels like he should be more concerned about this. Where is the panic that he was drowning in earlier? Is it possible to run out of fear?

They should get moving, he knows. But it's so easy, suddenly, to just sit here. He wants to stay, for just a while longer. Have peace, for just a little while. Just … not have to be afraid, for a few more minutes.

“Hey”, he says, without thinking.

Billy's sunk so low that when he's turning his head towards Steve, he's leaning his head on his shoulder. “Hm?”

“Thanks”, Steve says.

*

Steve can't see his watch, and he doesn't ask how long they're sitting there; Billy still with his head on Steve's shoulder – maybe he's sleeping, maybe he isn't – and neither of them speaking for a long time.

He spends the time blinking, and _blinking_ , and eventually and to his great relief, he can see his own hand when he moves it in front of his face. Given, he can't see that it's a hand; it's just something that is slightly lighter than the rest, moving. But it's better than being blind, and it gives him hope that it is fixable if they ever manage to get out of this place. Even if his eyelids feel like sandpaper.

They really should make a last effort to reach the gate and get away from here, he thinks – and he is convinced that it will be their last chance. He won't be able to see enough to spot any potential threat, and Billy ... well. Steve isn't a doctor, but even he knows that untreated wounds and a fever isn't a good combination.

As if on cue, Billy gives a whole-body shudder beside him. Steve sighs. It's about time they move on.

“Billy?”

No answer. He reaches out and shakes the other boy's shoulder.

“Hey, Billy?”

A groan, then, ”What?”

Billy's voice is rough.

“We need to get going.”

The silence that follows is relatable; they _do_ need to move, but it's tempting, so tempting, to just ... _not_. But Billy eventually takes a deep breath, stretches out and says, “'kay.”

He stands up, and Steve has time to miss the warmth at his side for a second, before Billy grabs a hold of his hand and pulls him to his feet. Steve is overwhelmed with dizziness, and the movement provokes a cough attack. He's bent over and coughing until there are tears in his eyes, with Billy's arm around him, holding him up.

“Hey, hey, you're okay. Just ... take it easy. _Easy_.”

Eventually, the coughing subsides and Steve can breathe again, although his chest rattles with every breath. His throat feels like it's coated with cement.

“You gonna puke again?”

He shakes his head and rubs at his eyes, but Billy slaps his hand away. “Quit it.”

And Steve may be worn out, but that makes him smile a little.

“Such a good nurse”, he comments, echoing Billy's words from what seems like a lifetime ago and making Billy snort.

“Man, shut up.” Then, after a while, “You okay to move?”

Steve gingerly stands up straight and tries to take a deeper breath. When that doesn't make him feel like coughing up a lung, he gives a careful nod.

“Okay. Let's go.”

*

Billy has to help him up the stairs, because of his current lack of vision. When he can feel a slick hardwood floor under his feet, he pauses. He's afraid to go out there; unarmed and basically blind.

“Did you check the house?” he whispers, already feeling the need to keep quieter.

“Yeah”, Billy whispers back.

“Anything we can use?”

“No”, is the short answer, but just after that, Billy presses something into Steve's hand. It's one of the screwdrivers.

“If one of those things come at us …” Billy starts. _“Screw ‘em.”_

Steve snorts, despite himself. “Jesus”, he says, “you know you’re not funny, right?”

“I am hilarious, Harrington.”

Steve doesn’t deign that with a reply, but he grips the weapon tightly in his hand. The thought of going up against actual monsters with a screwdriver is _laughable_ , it is at least _something_ , and it gives Steve the courage he needs to follow Billy out the door.

“I look, you listen”, Billy whispers and grabs a hold of Steve's elbow, guiding him down the porch steps and onto the street. Steve doesn't speak – doesn't want to risk coughing – but he gives a sharp nod.

And then they start walking.

*

It's slow going, even though they're following the road this time. Steve can see outlines of lighter areas against darker areas, and he can see a blurry Billy moving by his side, but he can't see where he walks, and being upright and moving makes his headache come back with a vengeance. He's leaning on Billy more than not, and that makes him notice when Billy's shivering, and those few time when he stumbles, even though the road is smooth under their feet.

Relying on someone else to keep you safe is a terrifying thing, Steve muses. He's used to being able to take care of both himself and others, and now he's in a state where he wouldn't even be able to protect himself against the neighbors’ cat.

_But_ , he amends, if he _has_ to rely on someone else, at least he could do worse than Billy Hargrove. And he knows that if he could go back 24 hours in time and say that to himsel, his past self would laugh in his face and ask if he'd been hit in the head. And yes, Steve _has_ been hit in the head, but that doesn't change the fact that Billy's presence next to him is grounding.

It's not until they've been walking for a while that Steve realizes that the pull of his T-shirt is missing, and still his nose and mouth are covered. Reaching up, he feels along the edge of the material on his face; it is coarser than his T-shirt – which he is still wearing – and it's tied in the back.

Billy's voice is in his ear before he can ask, and he's grateful that he won't have to speak.

“You kept pulling your T-shirt down. You’re wearing the one I used.”

Steve turns towards him and paws at his face – Billy slaps his hand away, but not before he feels soft fabric. “Stop it! It's not like I don't have one. I have your sweater, remember?”

If Steve felt like risking a coughing fit, he would have said something along the lines of “I wasn’t asking!”, but honestly? That would be a lie.

Shrugging – and regretting it when it makes him cough a little, anyway – he keeps walking.

*

They don't speak again, because the risk of something overhearing them is too big, and it’s not worth it. It's bad enough that they're coughing – Steve a lot more than Billy, but the thick air of the Upside Down is not easy to breathe for either of them. When they finally get to the quarry, Billy leans in close and lets him know, and Steve describes the easiest way through the forest to get to the other side of it in hushed whispers. They leave the road, and their trek gets trickier.

Billy's to Steve's left, so he can use his good arm to steer Steve in the right direction, or steady him if he stumbles, but he's also holding his screwdriver. Steve, too, is gripping his pitiful weapon tight, even though he knows he won't be of much use if they have to fight anything.

To be quite honest, after the day they've had, Steve kind of didn't expect that they'd get this far. Half of him had expected to be attacked by now, and there's something eerie about how still the woods are around them. It gives him the creeps. But Billy doesn't hesitate, so he must not see any threats, and Steve doesn't hear anything either.

And listening for something out of the ordinary is all he can do right now. Maybe the lack of sight makes him listen extra hard, but it's unnerving that he can't hear _any sounds_ that aren’t coming from the two of them; there is no wind, no distant traffic, no sounds of animals or insects. And the Upside Down seems even more chilling because of it.

When they're getting closer to the other side of the quarry, the terrain gets harder to get through, and they take a break and lean against a tree to get their breath back and decide what to do.

“So what are we looking for, exactly?” Billy whispers, close to his ear, and then turns his head so that Steve can answer in the same low voice.

“Did you see the gate when we fell in?”

He feels, more than sees, Billy shaking his head. “No.”

“It looked like ... dead trees. Oily, black, like they didn't belong.”

“ _All_ trees here look like that”, Billy whispers, and Steve imagines his eye roll.

“I don't know, then, just ... look for something that seems out of place.”

“Found it”, Billy mutters. “It's us.”

Now it's Steve's turn to roll his eyes. It makes the pounding in his head worse, but it's worth it as Billy snorts. Steve steels himself for what he's about to say, and then suggests, “You could leave me here. Go and check for it–”

“No.”

“Billy. It would be faster. I'm slowing you down.”

“Shut up.”

“You could come back for me when you've found it. I can wait here, I–”

“What’s with this self-sacrificial bullshit? That’s not happening. I'm not leaving you here, now get your lazy ass moving.”

And Steve does. He's more relieved than he'll admit, and his chest feels lighter. He didn't really want Billy to go off on his own, but it seemed like a rational thing to do. A rational thing to suggest. Steve is used to being the adult (seriously, he needs more friends his own age), and so he couldn't _not_ be the voice of reason. Still. It feels like a test that has been passed. By whom, he doesn’t know.

When they continue on, Billy's hand is hovering at his back and Steve says nothing about it.

The woods on the other side of the quarry is big. Walking around in them and _hoping_ to stumble upon a gate when they don't even know what it looks like? Is perhaps a tad optimistic. Steve had half expected it to be guarded by demodogs or a demogorgon or some other kind of monster, which is why it's grating on his nerves the further they come without running into _anything_.

And yet, when they _do_ run into something, he finds that he's woefully unprepared for it.

The first thing to tip them off that they're not alone anymore is the sound of something crunching, in front and to the left of them. Steve freezes, and stares in the direction of the sound. Billy steps out in front of him, and although Steve can't see anything but his blurry outlines, he's sure the other is standing ready, armed with his screwdriver. He's holding his breath and waiting for whatever's coming, and it's only because they're both focusing so intently on what may be in front of them that they miss what's behind them, until it's too late.

There's no warning. Suddenly something hits Steve from the side, and he slams into the murky ground with a weight on top of him.

“Harrington!” he hears, but the voice is drowned out by the sounds of hot breath on his neck. Something's rumbling, and by the time he recognizes the sound as growling, whatever attacked him has already bitten down on his shoulder and the back of his neck.

For about two seconds, he is just aware of a pressure there – and then the pain kicks in. His shoulder feels like it’s on fire; like the skin has been ripped off and revealed flesh and bones, and he screams in anguish and digs his fingers into the dirt, trying not to pass out.

The weight on top of him disappears, and there's a barrage of noises that he can't sort through. He tries to move, pain shoots through his body and all he can do is screw his eyes shut and try to breathe through it. In the back of his head, there's the knowledge that he has to _get up_ or he'll die, but he can't. He tries getting to his hands and knees, but collapses against the ground.

Someone is turning him around and it makes him feel as if he's rolling in broken glass. The only person other than him there is Billy – so it _should be Billy_ , because the alternative to Billy is a monster – so when he sees two lighter blurry creatures over him, he screams. He throws up his hands despite the agony it causes him, one of which is still holding the screwdriver, but something wraps around his wrist and he drops it.

“Billy!” he screams, because there is no one else who can help, and he's in pain and he can't defend himself and he doesn't want to die here.

He thinks he can hear Billy yell, but it's so far away – too far away to be of any help.

Several someones are holding him down – fighting them off is excruciating but he keeps trying – and there are noises all around him; buzzing, like an angry swarm of bees.

A bright light stabs his eyes, and he turns his head to the side.

It's a relief when darkness comes.


	5. Chapter 5

Someone’s poking Steve, and it’s not someone he knows, he thinks. There are lights overhead that are moving, but he can’t focus his eyes on them. Blurry figures pass through his field of vision, and it’s a couple of seconds before his hearing kicks in. When it does, he can hear screaming.

The screaming is coming from him. Everything hurts so badly that he can’t concentrate on anything but the way his shoulder feels like it’s been soaked in acid. He’s lying on something hard and thrashing around wildly to get off it, but there are hands holding him down. Their grip on his body hurt him. He gasps for breath, and the suddenly thin air entering his lungs is like a punch to the chest; his screaming turns to a wheeze and his flailing turns desperate.

He’s _dying_.

He squeezes his eyes shut against the light and sobs, because _it won’t stop_ , it just _hurts_. A hand touches his forehead and he can’t even flinch away. Someone is maybe saying something but he can’t decipher what. It doesn’t matter. He slips back into darkness.

*

It’s a frightening thing, to wake up to the feeling of being held down. Steve only notices this, though, when he tries to push away whoever’s touching his face and finds that he _can’t_. His brain has only just registered this fact when he realizes that whoever’s touching his face is _holding his eyelids open_ and is now pouring something into his eyes!

He screams, tries to blink, tries to get away. Someone curses, then there are voices all around him.

“Shit! Hey, it’s okay.”

“Hold him still.”

“It’s okay, kid, it’s okay.”

“Why isn’t he sedated?”

“He was.”

“Well fix it!”

“Right. Calm down, kid. We’re just gonna–“

The rest of the sentence is lost to the sensation of falling, flying, floating. Steve can’t close his eyes, but suddenly he can’t see or hear or feel anything either, so it’s okay.

*

When Steve wakes up for real, the first thing he's aware of is that it's light. Even through his closed eyelids, he can tell that wherever he is, it’s not dark. The second thing he notices is that he's warm. The third realization is that he should be in pain, but isn't. Strangely, it is _this_ that makes his heartbeat speed up, because even though he's comfortable he somehow knows that he _shouldn’t_ be, so – what's going on?

Opening his eyes does not give him any immediate answers. He finds himself blinking against too bright fluorescent lights in a room he doesn't recognize. His bed (because he’s lying in a bed) is facing an empty light yellow wall (and he’d _forgotten_ _how colors look like_ , so he stares at the wall for a few seconds, just drinking it in) and on his left is a wall with a door, as well as some kind of machine and an IV-stand with a bag of clear liquid that attaches to a thin plastic tube that – on closer inspection – disappears under a bandage in the crook of his arm. On the right side of the bed is another windowless wall, and–

– and Billy.

Billy is sitting in a chair next to his bed, head down and eyes closed. Sleeping?

Steve blinks in confusion, and for a fraction of a second his mind draws a complete blank. Then it all comes back to him; the Upside Down, Billy, not being able to _see_ ...

He's suddenly grateful for the blindingly bright lights, and the fact that he can see them at all.

He recalls the attack in the woods; the blurry shapes holding him down and the pain in his shoulder and neck being the last thing he can remember. Reaching up, he feels coarse material covering his shoulder. Bandages? Is he at a hospital?

The movement alerts Billy, who opens his eyes and tenses up, but when he sees that Steve is awake and looking at him, he relaxes.

“Hey”, he says, and sinks down in the chair again.

“Hey”, Steve rasps. It hurts his throat, and he licks his lips and frowns. Billy's dressed in a grey T–shirt that's too big on him, and there's a clean bandage on his chest, peeking out from under it. His bad arm has been wrapped with stark white gauze, and he's got ugly red and purple bruising around his left eye. There's also a shadow of a bruise on his jaw, under his stubble. Steve remembers the fight they had what seems like forever ago, and feels a little bad.

“You look like shit”, he croaks.

“Says the guy in the hospital bed”, Billy deadpans. “You don't look too hot either.”

Steve doesn't _feel_ so hot, but the only pain he can feel right now is in his throat, when he speaks. It feels like he's been trying and failing to swallow barbed wire. He tries to clear his throat and winces.

“Water?” Billy asks, and twists his body awkwardly to reach beside him with his good arm. Steve turns his head and sees a little table there, with a bunch of stuff on it. Among other things, a couple of plastic mugs and a pitcher of water.

Billy pours him a cup and hands it over, still only using his right hand. Steve takes it with his own left hand, to not aggravate the wounds he knows are on his right shoulder.

“Thanks.”

Drinking is _heavenly_ , his throat being as parched as it is, and he drinks it all in a matter of seconds and doesn't even care that it hurts. Billy's watching him with a raised eyebrow, and when the cup is empty he says, slowly, “They told me to tell you to take it easy ...”

Steve doesn't care. The water was worth a little pain, and he wants more. Then, “Wait, _they_? Who are _they_?”

Tapping his finger against the metal frame of the bed, Billy opens his mouth, but hesitates before he speaks.

“Umm. Okay, so, what do you remember?”

“The Upside Down. I couldn't see, and we were by the quarry and something attacked. Something ... bit me?”

“Yeah”, Billy says and drags a hand through his hair. “That was one of those demon dogs. None of us saw it coming. It ... I got it off you, but that's when these guys showed up. Like, dressed in these white overalls, they ...”

He goes quiet, seems to think about his words. Steve wants to ask, but he figures Billy will continue when he's ready. He's right.

“They got us out of there, anyway. You weren't ... you were all bloody and stuff. I thought you'd kicked the bucket or something.”

He says it flippantly, but his shoulders has tensed up and he won't look away from the opposite wall. Steve tries to lighten the mood.

“After surviving a whole day in the Upside Down with _you_ , you think I'm gonna tap out after a little bite? It's like you don't know me at all.”

It gets a crooked smile and a glance out of Billy, and Steve feels proud.

“So where are we?” he asks. “Hospital?”

“No.” And Billy's back to frowning. “Not a hospital.”

“But–”

“Yeah, they've treated our injuries, sure. But that door over there?” He nods at the door. “That's locked. And their hospitality is shit.”

At the mention of their injuries, Steve remembers that Billy definitely had a fever, and he looks him over critically. “You okay? Your arm, it–”

And he cuts himself off. Because while Billy's arm looks properly taken care of, with white bandages going from above his elbow to the tips of his fingers, something else catches his attention and makes him speechless for a second.

“Billy?” he says, calmly. “Why are you handcuffed to my bed?”

Billy bites his lip and frowns.

“I punched a security guard.”

“What? A security guard, wh–”

“And a doctor.”

“ _Why would you do that?_ ”

Billy clenches his jaw and looks utterly unapologetic. “They deserved it.”

He doesn't elaborate, and Steve is left wondering a) what they did to deserve it and b) why there's even a security guard at a hospital to begin with. Then he remembers that they're _not_ at a hospital, and that the presence of security guards makes it very probable that the people who has them are connected to the Upside Down. He can feel himself go pale, and Billy punching people here suddenly makes a lot more sense.

He doesn't know a lot about the lab, or the people in it. Just things he’s heard over time. He's overheard Hopper grumble about ‘immoral assholes’ sometimes when he thinks that none of the kids can hear, and he's heard Jonathan speak of his little brother's nightmares. The kids _never_ shut up around Steve, so he knows what was done to El, and what the people who were supposed to help was doing to Will when he was infected with that thing last year. And if he's right, and these are the same people? Yeah, Steve would like to do some punching, too.

Most of all, though, he wants to get out of here as soon as he can.

Billy must sense that something's wrong, because he asks, “You okay?”

Steve doesn't answer immediately. Instead, he holds out his cup and shakes it a little, and Billy refills it with an eye roll and a “so demanding ...”. While Steve drinks – slower, this time – his eyes roam around the room. He can't see anything out of the ordinary, but if this is the same people that they've been dealing with before, then he's pretty sure that they're being monitored. Somehow.

He tries to sit up, and winces. Okay, _there’s_ the pain. His shoulder hurts, and he scrunches his face up in a grimace – and _that_ reminds him that yeah, Billy got a few good punches in as well, just before all of this began.

Billy's at his side, though; is half-standing by the bed with his good hand hovering, as if he's not sure of what to do. In the end, he moves the pillow a little so Steve can lie down again, somewhat comfortably.

Steve beckons him closer. Billy's eyebrows does something strange, but he leans over. Not close enough. Steve impatiently nods towards the door, and then for Billy to get even closer. Billy is outright frowning now, but he sits down on his chair and scoots closer, puts his good arm on the edge of the bed and leans his head against it, just a few inches from Steve's pillow.

Steve turns his head so they're face to face, and tries to ignore how weird this feels. His voice is barely a whisper when he speaks.

“You remember when I told you about the lab? The ones that opened the gate in the first place?”

Billy doesn't move, but he _mhm_ s – as if he, too, understands the need for secrecy – and Steve proceeds with whispering everything he knows about the lab; the things they've done, the things they've _supposedly_ done, the rumors. He keeps his voice low, for Billy's ears only, and Billy listens without interrupting until he runs out of words.

“So ...”, he murmurs when Steve trails off, “ _that's_ the people who got us out?” His breath is hot against Steve's face, and Steve swallows and nods.

“I mean, maybe. Probably. Who else has these resources, right?”

“I thought you said the Chief was gonna be at the quarry. That he was gonna help. But he's with them?”

“No”, Steve says, and then amends; “Or, yeah. Maybe. In a way. Not like, _with_ them, with them, but ... He knows about stuff. He's on our side, though. For sure.”

Or _probably_ , at least.

That's when they hear a key in a lock. They spring apart; Billy leans back in his chair and Steve whips his head around to face the door, just as a tall man in a grey shirt and tie enters the room. He's holding a clipboard and wears plain black glasses, and he looks entirely too normal. He gives Steve the creeps.

“Ah, Mr. Harrington, you're awake”, he says without sounding the least bit surprised about this fact. “Mr. Hargrove, I thought I told you to let us know when that happened?”

“Yeah”, Billy drawls. “He just woke up, so.”

The lie hangs in the air for all of them to see, and Steve glances over at the tone of his voice. Billy is tense, and wearing his sarcastic face, as if he's looking for a fight. It's startling to see him like that – startling that a day and night spent fighting for their lives in the Upside Down is enough to make Steve forget how Billy usually behaves.

The man's eyes narrows, but to contradict the lie would be to admit that he has indeed been watching, so he seems to decide to ignore it.

“No matter”, he says lightly and walks up to the edge of the bed. Looking down at the clipboard in his hands, he _hmm_ s and then inspects the machine that Steve's apparently hooked up to. ”How do you feel, Mr. Harrington?”

 _Confused? Relieved? Terrified? Suspicious?_ All of the above, but Steve doesn't say that. “Uh. Surprisingly not-dead.”

The man smiles a smile that doesn't reach his eyes.

“Everything's looking good, don't you worry. You've suffered through ... something like a trauma, and it's normal to feel out of sorts. It's probably a good idea to get the debrief over with as soon as possible, while it's fresh in your memory. Are you feeling up to it?”

 _Debrief_? Steve glances over at Billy, who is no help at all – just juts his chin out and stares at the man. “Yeah? Okay?”

“Great”, the man says and gives him smile – a real one this time. “Someone will come for you in a minute.”

He turns around to leave, but as the door opens (from the outside, as if someone was waiting for him to exit) he stops, and looks back over his shoulder. “I trust you remember our agreement, Mr. Hargrove?”

Steve startles and stares at Billy, who doesn't look away from the man by the door. “Yeah”, he says between clenched teeth.

“I'll see you soon then.”

As soon as the door clicks shut (and clicks again as it's being locked, which is not something Steve wants to think about right now), Billy lets out a breath and sinks down in his chair.

“So”, Steve says. “ _Not_ a hospital.”

“Not a hospital”, Billy agrees and drags a hand down his face.

Steve's throat is raw and he'd really rather drink some more water than speak, but he ignores it in favor of getting answers.

“What was that about?”

“What?”

“What do you mean, _what_? What was that guy talking about? What agreement?”

Throwing out his good arm in frustration, Billy rolls his neck and makes a face as if he can't believe they're talking about this. In the harsh lighting of the room, Billy looks far from the Billy that was in the Upside Down – this frustrated, frowning Billy is more like the _Hargrove_ that Steve would have expected to see before all of this happened. And yet, it's like his vision has been adjusted somehow; he can see the signs that he couldn't see before, and he somehow _knows_ that Billy is frustrated because he doesn't want to talk about it.

“What happened?” he asks, softer.

And another sign that they are closer than before; Billy doesn't sneer or make a snide comment – instead he looks down at his bandaged arm and grits out, “They wouldn't let me see you.”

He winces, like he regrets the words the moment they leave him, and amends, “I mean, they wouldn't tell me anything. Fuck, you were all bloody and still in that forest and the last thing I saw of you was that they carried you off! And it's not like ...”

His eyes flicker up to meet Steve's, but he quickly ducks down again.

“It's not like I care, but. I was in this room, and they were asking all these questions and they weren't _telling_ me anything. I don't even know ...” He sighs. “I don't even know what _day_ it is, man.”

And then he falls silent. When it's clear he won't continue without prompting, Steve says, “So you punched someone?”

That makes Billy's lips quirk up at the corners.

“Several someones, actually.”

“Must have gone over well.”

Billy's face darkens. “Not really. But that guy came in, said that I could see you if I _behaved_ myself and answered their questions.”

Steve has a hard time believing what Billy’s hinting at. Not that these people were interrogating Billy and refusing to share information, _that_ he can believe – but that Billy might have actually agreed in order to see Steve. It sounds unlikely, so he asks for clarification.

“So ... you–?”

Billy shrugs and stares at his bandaged hand. “I mean, you're not– But you're the only one I know in here. And you're the one who's, you know. Been through this before, or whatever.”

Coming from Billy Hargrove, that's practically a proclamation of eternal loyalty, even though he refuses to look Steve in the eyes. Or _especially_ because he refuses to look Steve in the eyes.

Steve needs time to process this, but that is – of course – when they hear the door open again. This time, there are two white-clad men and one woman, pushing a wheelchair. The shorter man has a swollen nose and bruising under both eyes, and judging by the way he glares at Billy, Steve's gonna go out on a limb and say that this is one of the people Billy punched earlier.

“Hello, gentlemen”, says the taller of the two men. “Shall we?”

He and the lady help Steve sit up in the bed, and then guide him into the wheelchair. He isn't actually in that much pain when he's sitting there, and he thinks that he could maybe try walking. When he says this, though, the lady opens her mouth to protest but Billy beats her to the punch.

“Harrington, what are you, stupid? You have a concussion and a back full of stitches. Stay in the damn chair.”

And while Steve's not entirely happy about the _stupid_ comment, he's not going to argue with the one person he trusts in here – the thought enters his head unbidden, and while he's still reeling from the fact that he apparently _trusts_ Billy now, the lady makes him hold the IV stand and wheels him out of the room. He looks back and sees the taller man unlock the handcuff around Billy's wrist, while the shorter man has a hand on his shoulder. Billy turns his head and gives him a grin.

*

Last year, after the whole tunnel incident, Steve didn't have to have a debrief. A couple of days after the event, two men in suits came to the house when he was alone and had him sign a bunch of papers that basically said that he couldn't talk about what he'd seen, but other than that? Nothing. And he'd been _fine_.

Okay, so there was the occasional nightmare. Maybe more than a few. But he was fine now, and a debrief was supposed to be so that you could process what you'd been though, right? Steve doesn't need to process things – he needs to get home, is what he needs to do. Which means that this debrief is less for _his_ sake, and more for _their_ sake.

And the thing is ... The thing is that Steve is not stupid. His first thought was to just tell them absolutely everything so that they could close the fucking gates once and for all to make sure this doesn't happen again, because honestly it's been _years_ now and evidently they still haven't succeeded – how are they still funded?

But then he starts thinking. Maybe they're still funded because they're not actively _trying_ to make sure this doesn't happen again. Maybe they have a more sinister agenda. Steve's smarter than people think, okay? He’s heard the whispers about spies and creating weapons. He knows things aren't always what they seem.

Steve is also smart enough to know when to play stupid, and it's at times like these that he's glad that his reputation in town is either King Steve, party boy, or a kid who never really got over the breakup with Nancy and hangs out with kids. Because if these people know _anything_ about him, they're gonna see him as just another stupid teen who was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Which, incidentally, is kind of what he was. They don't know what he knows or suspects, though, so they have no reason to believe that he doesn't believe in what they say.

“There we are”, the lady says and wheels him into a surprisingly cozy room with a bookcase, a counter, a table with a tape recorder on it, two chairs standing next to it, and a curtained window to the outside that shows a blue sky with a few fluffy grey clouds. Steve's heart clenches, and for a moment all he can do is stare out through the glass, even though the brightness sends needles of pain through his head. The sky is beautiful, he decides. Daylight is his favorite kind of light, hands down.

“You want some water, sweetie?” the woman says from where she's standing at one counter, and gives him an questioning look over her shoulder.

“Yeah, sure”, he says. “Thanks.”

She comes back with a glass of water and smiles when she hands it to him. He drinks slowly, but doesn't finish it. He feels better if he has something in his hands that he can fiddle with.

“Mr. Hatley will be with you shortly. Would you like me to stay?”

And she looks so genuine and nice, that Steve almost says yes. But in the end he ducks his head with a smile and murmurs, “No, thanks though.”

“Alright”, she says and move to leave the room. “I'll be right outside, you just let me know if you need anything, okay? And make sure to tell Mr. Hatley if you get tired. We can always continue this later.”

Really? The other guy was half-threatening and insisted on a ‘debrief’ happening when he'd just woken up from ... well, he wasn't sure just what had happened, yet ... and this lady is being all nice and understanding? He's not entirely sure of what's going on. Is this going to be an interrogation or what?

“Oh, hello Henry. We were just talking about you. Mr. Harrington is ready for you, right through there.”

Steve turns in his wheelchair, at least as far as his wounded shoulder will allow. He had expected to have to speak to the creepy guy that was in their room just now, but the man who enters the room is short and pudgy and smiles when their eyes meet.

“Good afternoon”, he says. He's carrying a bunch of papers under his arm, and is holding a coffee cup in the other hand. He puts everything down on the table and goes about plugging the tape recorder in.

“I'm sorry”, he says while he's working. “This should have been set up already, but it was a short notice kind of thing. Right after lunch, too. Have you eaten?”

“Uh, no”, Steve frowns, because this isn't what he expected at all. He was prepared for evil scientists and secret government agents, and now when he's surrounded by seemingly normal and friendly people, he doesn't know what to think.

“I'm actually not sure if you're allowed to eat just yet”, the man, Mr. Hatley, says and purses his lips at the IV stand that the lady left at Steve's side. “Don't worry, though, we'll get you something light and easy to digest as soon as we're done here. That sound good to you?”

“Yeah”, Steve says. “Sure.”

“Right then”, Hatley says and sits down, sips at his coffee. “We'll just go through what happened to you and your friend. I'll have to record it, so that I won't forget anything and so that you won’t have to repeat yourself, but don't be nervous about it. We'll just be talking, and I'll ask you a couple of questions, and that's all, okay?”

“Sure”, Steve says again and gestures with a hand, because why the hell not? “Go ahead.”

The man presses a button on the recorder, and begins.

It's more of a conversation than a questioning, really. Mr. Hatley is nice, and smiles encouragingly at Steve and even gets up to refill his water at one point, and Steve will gladly give him any and all information about the demodogs that roam the Upside Down, and even mentions that they saw a Demogorgon. He doesn’t go into detail about the terror of that particular experience, or his panic when he couldn't see, but he thinks that it’s probably pretty clear anyway.

There are some questions, though, that he isn't entirely comfortable answering. He does _not_ mention the kids, and he hopes to the powers that be that Billy is smart enough not to do it either.

 _How did he and Billy end up in the Upside Down?_ They fought each other in the woods and fell down a black hole.

 _Were they alone in the woods?_ Yes. _No one else was there?_ Um, no.

 _Why were they in the woods at night?_ Well, he can't speak for Billy but Hopper had called Steve and told him to check out something strange there.

After half an hour or so, Steve's getting tired. His head hurts and his shoulder hurts and his vision is beginning to get a little blurry. He squints at the man opposite to him and says, “I don't know what else I can tell you, man. It was ... horrible, really. I never want to have to do something like that again.”

“Understandable”, Hatley says and presses the button to stop the recording. “I'm sure you're getting tired. I'll have someone escort you back to your room.”

“Will Billy be there?” Steve asks without thinking.

“I'm sure he will”, Hatley replies, “and if he's not there already, he'll get there soon. You and Billy, you know each other well?”

Steve's first instinct is to snort and deny it, but something stops him. _Do_ they know each other? They didn't, really, before Friday night, but after going through what they went through?

“Yeah”, he finds himself saying, nodding to himself.

Hatley doesn’t ask anything else, just walks out in the hallway to get the lady – who was apparently waiting outside, just like she said she would. She fusses over Steve and tells him he looks tired, and takes him and the wheelchair out of the room. Hatley thanks him on his way out, and wishes him a speedy recovery. It's all very surreal.

The room that she wheels him into is not the same one he woke up in. This one is larger, and while it has a bed like the other room, a cot has been placed along one wall, and there's another door to the left. A little square table and two chairs, and another little table with stuff on it, standing in a corner. There's no window, though, only a little oddly-placed mirror hanging behind the door.

“We don't have two-bed rooms”, she explains. “Hopefully this will do, since you wanted to share with your friend.”

And Steve's headache is getting worse, and even this lady's friendly presence is too much for him right now. He feels worn out, and irritable, but he bites it down and tries to smile.

“It's okay”, he says. “It's fine. Thank you.”

He could probably get out of the wheelchair by himself, but she moves to help him and he doesn't want to argue, so he lets her. Since she seems to be at least somewhat agreeable, he takes the opportunity to ask, “So um, my family must be freaking out right about now … do you think I could call them, just to tell them I’m okay?”

She smiles at him but shakes her head. “We don’t have a phone in here, I’m afraid.” He opens his mouth to protest, but she speaks over him when she continues, “But don’t you worry, someone’s informed your family of what’s happened. They know that you are all right.”

Somehow Steve really doubts that his parents have been informed about what _really_ happened, but he doesn’t have the energy to get into a discussion with this woman. His head is killing him and he squints against the light. She notices, and helps him into bed and then brings him a white pill and a small plastic cup of water. He frowns at it, but she just pats his arm and tells him it’s a light painkiller. When he’s swallowed it, she motions to the table next to him.

“There's more water on the table, and the bathroom is that other door over there. I'll go and get something for you to drink, does juice sound good? And maybe something more solid, we'll see what the doctor says. And then we can probably remove the IV, since you're awake and all, what do you say?”

Steve would like to say that she's talking too much, that's what he wants to say – but he doesn't. At this point, he just wants to be left alone. So he gives another forced smile, another “fine”, and then she's finally out the door.

He doesn't hear it lock behind her, but then again, he's not exactly at peak performance right now.

It is maybe ten minutes before the door opens. He looks up, fully expecting it to be the lady carrying a tray or something, and is pleasantly surprised when it's Billy, who struts in as if he owns the place. He is followed by the man with the busted nose, who's holding him by the shoulder and his good arm. Billy stumbles a little when the man lets go _just_ a little too forcefully, but he rights himself immediately and turns to the man with a blinding grin on his face.

“Yeah, love you too, Hank.”

The man (Hank?) glowers, but doesn't say anything, just turns and leaves. This time, there's the unmistakable sound of a key turning in a lock, and then they're alone. The grin slips from Billy's face, and he looks as tired as Steve feels as he takes a couple of steps into the room.

“You okay?” Steve asks.

“Sure”, Billy replies, voice flat. “I'm peachy.”

“Hey. Come here.”

And surprisingly, Billy does. He drags one of the chairs closer to the bed, sits down and puts his head on his arm, close to Steve's head, just like he had before. Steve leans closer, looks him over properly.

“Seriously, you okay?” he whispers.

“Yeah”, Billy answers, equally low. “They were asking all these questions, and I ... they give me the creeps, you know?”

“Same here”, Steve replies. “Did you ... did they ask about the kids? If we were alone in the woods?”

“Yeah.”

“What'd you tell them?”

“Said we were alone.”

Steve breathes out a sigh of relief. “Good. Good.”

He doesn't have anything else to say, but he still doesn't move away. Neither does Billy, so they're staying like that, heads close together but not touching.

“You know”, Billy says after a while. “Someone's gonna walk in here soon and get the wrong idea.”

“Fuck'em”, is Steve's immediate reply. “Not like they aren't watching us already.”

Billy's frowning, and Steve continues, “Or at least they have the room bugged.”

He's not sure of it, of course, but he wouldn't expect less from these people. Besides, the lady who was so helpful before, and insisted that he could call on her if he wanted something during his debrief, never even mentioned what he should do if he needed anything in this room. That was probably because they will know if anything happens anyway.

Billy sighs, and leans his forehead against the metal edge of the bed.

“Fuck'em”, he agrees.

*

They sit like that for a while, until Steve feels the need to visit the men's room. Not wanting to have to deal with anymore strangers, he tries to get out of bed alone.

“Hey, what are you doing?”

Steve gives Billy an annoyed look and nods to the bathroom door, eyebrows raised.

Billy shrugs. “You sure you should be ... getting up?” He nods pointedly at Steve's bandaged shoulder. “I mean, they were carving you up just recently, you know.”

“Look who's talking, Mr. 'I'll just punch people with my chewed-up arm'!”

“I didn't punch them with my _bad_ arm”, Billy deadpans, but offers Steve a hand to help him get out of bed. “You need the wheelchair?”

Steve doesn't answer right away. He gets to his feet and sways a bit. His shoulder hurts and it’s sending sharp pains down his arm and back, but he grits his teeth and keeps his balance. He shakes his head.

“Okay”, Billy says simply, and that's that. He watches Steve as he hobbles to the bathroom, but doesn't try to help him. Steve is oddly grateful. It feels like trust.

He takes his time, and looks himself over in the bathroom mirror. He looks like shit. His skin is pale and there are dark bags under his eyes. The whites of his eyes have red splotches all over them, and he doesn’t want to look at them for too long – because it makes him picture how he must have looked in the Upside Down. He’s got a split lip, a bruise on his chin, and another one in his hairline. A dark mark on his stomach from where Billy punched him in the woods, and a couple of scratches and marks here and there from … he can’t even remember where they’re from.

He can’t see how his shoulder looks, but it hurts when he gently pokes the bandage, so he imagines it’s not good.

All in all, he’s looking like he feels.

When he emerges from the bathroom, Billy's standing close – as if by happenstance.

“Checking out the room”, he says. Seeing Steve's pale face, he steps up close without another comment and offers his arm. It feels like when he was leaning on Billy in the Upside Down, but yet very different. Then, they were running for their lives from monsters. Now, they're in a brightly lit room somewhere unknown, wearing clothes that aren't their own. One thing hasn't changed, though – Billy is a steadying presence at his side, and can take Steve's weight.

When he's back at the bed, he clears his throat. “Thanks.”

If it had been before all this happened, Billy would have made a scathing comment. Now, he just waves it away. When Steve sits down on the edge of the bed, Billy surprises him by sitting down next to him. Closer than Steve would have expected. He turns towards him with a curious expression on his face. Billy turns his head, too, and says, under his breath, “Room's definitely bugged. I found one. Under the table.”

Steve's heart sinks, even though he'd expected it. “Camera?” he mutters.

“Don't know”, Billy says. “But that's a weird place for a mirror, and it's screwed to the wall …”

Steve doesn't have to look at it to know what Billy means. He thought about it too. Who places a mirror in a corner halfway behind a door anyway?

It occurs to him that if there _is_ a space behind that wall, then that space would also have access to the bathroom ... and the mirror above the sink. It makes him groan.

“What?” Billy asks, but Steve has no time to answer before the door opens and the woman comes in with a small metal cart and announces, just a little too cheerfully; “Dinner for two!”

She sets it up on the little table on the opposite wall, and when Steve declines her offer to help him get there, she leaves.

Billy had jumped up from the bed when the woman entered, and turned his body so he was facing her the whole time. When they're alone, he walks to the table and peers down on the trays.

“Soup”, he says and nods appreciatively.

Steve's stomach rumbles. It hits him that he hasn't eaten for ... well, he's not entirely sure how long he's been here, but it might be _days_. Plural. And suddenly he's _starving_.

He gets up and gingerly walks over to the table. On his tray is a bowl of smooth soup, a cheese sandwich and an orange. Simple food, and not much of it, but to Steve is looks like a banquet.

Sitting down with Billy on the other end of the table is ... _surreal_. A lot of things have felt surreal lately, but none more so than this. Sitting like this, banged up and bandaged, having a quiet meal at the same table –

Steve has barely taken one bite of his sandwich when the pure ridiculousness of the situation hits him, and he almost chokes on the bread as he starts to giggle. Honest-to-God _giggle_. Billy's head snaps up – he’s probably afraid that Steve has either been poisoned or finally snapped – but when he sees Steve laughing, he relaxes. Puts his spoon in his soup and shakes his head.

“You're a fucking weirdo”, he mutters before putting his lips to the spoon and loudly slurping the soup from it. This is hilarious to Steve, who for some reason _cannot stop laughing_. A corner of Billy's mouth twitches, and he bends his head to avoid meeting Steve's eyes.

Steve has tears of mirth in his eyes, and he's holding his stomach.

“Ow, ow, ow”, he gasps between laughs, because everything kind of hurts, but still he can't stop. Especially not when Billy puts his spoon down and Steve sees his shoulders shake with silent laughter.

In the end, Steve is practically _howling_ , and Billy is laughing along with him without trying to hide it. It’s … strange, but nice, and feels _liberating_.

Eventually, they calm down. Steve is holding his stomach and grimacing – Billy's picking up his spoon again.

“Shit, man”, Steve whines. “Ow, that hurt.”

“You're a dumbass”, is Billy's reply, but he's smiling. “Eat your food.”

And Steve does. Takes a sip of the soup – it's good! – and glances up at Billy, who's trying to ignore him. He waits until Billy's got the spoon in his mouth, and then he comments, faux-casually, “Look at us. Having dinner together. Almost like a date.”

And he's back to laughing, because Billy splutters and almost spits soup all over the table.

“So smooth”, Steve cackles as Billy's wiping his mouth, hunched over the table. “I don't understand how you got so many girls to fall for you back in school.”

Billy glares at him from over his tray, but says nothing. Steve's face hurts from smiling too much (in combination with his bruised chin and split lip), but he picks up his spoon and continues eating.

The silence is different this time around, as if their shared laughter cleared the air, made it breathable somehow. Steve would almost describe it as companionable.

He really should have expected what comes next.

“I got girls back in school because I'm good at fucking”, Billy says without looking up, and it's Steve's turn to choke on the soup.

He's laughing and coughing, and then _only_ coughing until there are tears in his eyes. He's bending over and resting his forehead on the table, as he feels Billy's hand on his back, patting it awkwardly.

“Shit, Harrington, you okay there?”

“You asshole”, Steve wheezes and looks up at an unapologetically grinning Billy who's looking way too proud of himself. “That fucking hurt.”

“Harrington, when it comes to fucking; if it hurts, you're not doing it right.”

That makes Steve snort again, and he sits up and shoves at Billy. Grinning, Billy returns to his own chair.

“Fuck you”, Steve mutters. “Ugh, I got soup up my nose.”

That makes _Billy_ snort, and they're off again.

And it's so easy, after that, to just continue the same way. They talk shit; about sports, about cars, about people they both knew from when they were in school. They stick to safe topics, though – neither of them mention the situation they're in, the Upside Down or the kids. It's like they wordlessly decide to just be ... stupid teenagers for a while. Like a silent ‘fuck you’ to the people who are probably listening in.

After they've eaten, Steve stares mournfully at the empty bowl and reaches for his orange.

“It was good”, he says, “but in hindsight, maybe they shouldn't have given us soup. I think I spit out like half of it.”

“That's because you're wasteful”, Billy comments and stretches. “Besides, soup is good for when you haven't eaten in a while. Less likely to upset your stomach.”

Steve narrows his eyes at him.

“How do you even know that?”

“ _Everyone_ knows that. How do you _not_ know that? Haven't you ever been hungover?”

Steve grins. ”They called me King Steve for a reason, you know.”

Billy glares and breaks off a slice of his orange. ”I call bullshit. _Everyone_ gets hungover.”

And they talk, and they banter, and it feels like they're _friends_. Steve briefly compares it to how they acted towards each other back in the forest, before they fell, and the change from _that_ to _this_ is so big that it's giving him a headache if he thinks about it too much. So he doesn't.

He just supposes that there are some things that you just can't do together without getting at least a little bit closer to the other person. Running for your lives from monsters is probably one of those things.

After a while, during which his headache doesn’t let up, his shoulder is starting to throb. Billy, too, looks a little worn; flushed, like he's still a little feverish, and Steve notices that his hand is shaking slightly when he's holding his glass of water.

“This is such a mess”, he says.

“Mm”, Billy agrees.

Steve is busy pondering how to suggest that they get some rest without sounding like he needs it, when the door clicks open again and two men enter; both wearing white, but one of them is wearing a coat and looks like a doctor.

“Ah, Mr. Harrington, Mr. Hargrove”, the man in the coat says.

“Dr. Johnson”, Billy comments, confirming that the man is indeed a doctor.

“How are we feeling?”

Not waiting for a reply, he takes the wheelchair from where it's standing by the door and wheels it closer. “You've had some light food, excellent. No nausea? No stomach aches?”

When they shake their heads, he smiles.

“Good! Now, I'm sure you're quite tired. We'll let you get some rest soon, but first we have to make sure your bodies are handling this transition. If you'll both come with us, we'll get this over with as soon as possible and then you can catch up on some sleep.”

*

Steve is exhausted.

He'd been taken to a room (in the wheelchair, even though he insisted that he could walk) where the doctor and an assistant proceeded to poke and prod him for what felt like hours. He'd had his blood drawn, his wounds redressed, his temperature taken. Steve had had to rinse his eyes out with some kind of solution that would apparently lessen the irritation, which wasn't a fun experience at all. The doctor had then put some things on his temples and hooked them up to some kind of machine while he asked questions about the Upside Down, and at every answer he looked at the machine and jotted something down on a piece of paper.

Steve was getting more than annoyed and had taken the opportunity to ask questions; where were they? Why were they being held here? When could they leave? Had someone contacted their families? What was being done about the gates? But he only received vague answers, and it was frustrating the hell out of him. Eventually, he'd stood up, ripped the whatever-it-was off his head and slammed it down on a table, exclaiming, “Why should I answer your questions when you're not answering any of mine?”

The doc had held his hands up in a soothing gesture, but the assistant had simply grabbed a hold of Steve's upper arms and sat him down again. Steve had winced at the pain from his shoulder and the doctor had looked apologetic, but didn't comment on the treatment.

“You will get answers”, he'd said. “But not from me. Please, be patient. My job is to make sure you are feeling as well as possible after what you've gone through. Someone else will speak to you about the rest.”

Steve had glowered, but the doctor hadn't given in – just placed the thing back on Steve's temples and resumed the tests.

And now, when Steve is back in what he's already started to consider _his_ room, he feels exhausted. He'd been given some painkillers, so the pain in his body is dulling, but he’s _tired_. He wants to sleep for a week and wake up when he's back home and this is all over. He wants things to be normal again – but suspects that things won't ever go back to the way they were.

Billy's not back yet, and Steve finds himself missing him – and that in itself is a huge sign that things have changed. The room is empty of strange people, which gives Steve some room to breathe, but not knowing where Billy is is making Steve uncomfortable.

It's because Billy is the only one in this place that he knows, he tells himself. And Billy _did_ have his back in the Upside Down, so surely he'll have his back here, too? Either way, he feel somewhat safer in this situation when the other boy is around.

So when the door to the room opens and Billy saunters in with a loud “Honey, I'm home”, Steve lets out a breath and feels himself relaxing. Even the sound of the door locking doesn't stop him from smiling. He plays along.

“How was your day, dear?”

Billy gives him a quick glance while he seems to consider how to answer.

“Oh, you know”, he drawls and then turns around and stares straight into the mirror, “questionable doctors taking all kinds of tests and asking all sorts of nosy questions. The usual.”

He flips the mirror off and takes a detour to the bathroom.

“Oh, look!” he exclaims with fake cheer. “We've gotten toothbrushes! This sure is a five-star establishment!” A moment later, Steve hears the water running.

Brushing his teeth sounds like a great plan right about now, actually. Running his tongue over his teeth, he's suddenly disgusted by how they feel, so he gets up and walks over to the bathroom door, which Billy didn't close behind him.

Billy's standing in front of the sink, frowning at the mirror and looking so much like the old Billy Hargrove that Steve falters. That is, until he notices that Billy's got the toothbrush in his mouth, more chewing on it than brushing. It looks absolutely ridiculous, and makes Steve take another step.

“Gimme one”, he demands.

Billy looks at him in the mirror and hands him the other toothbrush and a tube of toothpaste that was apparently also left for them.

Steve takes it, and goes back out to sit on the edge of his bed, letting Billy finish in the bathroom. Then they switch places.

When Steve comes out after a couple of minutes, his teeth feels cleaner and he feels generally better about himself. He finds Billy sitting on the cot, with his back to the wall, chewing on a fingernail.

Their eyes meet.

“I would _kill_ for a cigarette right now.”

Steve snorts. “Yeah, sorry”, he says. “I'm all out.”

He sits down on the bed, contemplating what's next. They're both worn out, he knows. Just brushing his teeth made his hand shake, and he can feel his eyelids getting heavier.  He wonders if it's because of the stress or the medication. Probably a combination of both. Billy is equally weary, judging by the way he kind of just tips over onto his side on the cot, splaying out onto the mattress like someone dropped him there.

And though Steve is more than ready to go to sleep already, he wants to say something.

“So, uh. Goodnight?”

“Is it even nighttime?”

Huh. Steve realizes that he doesn't know. “I saw daylight outside a window before they showed me into this room, anyway?” And it's a statement, but his uncertainty makes it sound like a question.

Billy moves on the cot so he can look at Steve. “Really?”

“Yeah. And that was ...” He shrugs. “... a while ago. It might be nighttime now.”

Billy huffs out a laugh and shakes his head. “This is so fucked up.”

“Tell me about it.”

A couple of seconds of silence, during which Steve tries to get comfortable under the covers, then Billy speaks again.

“I ... am so fucking tired, man.”

Steve nods. “Me too.” He's about to add that they should get some sleep, when Billy speaks again.

“I don't think I can get up to kill the lights.”

Steve groans. The light switch is all the way over by the door – it might as well be a mile, for how motivated Steve is to get out of bed. “You're kidding me! I literally _just_ laid down!”

“Come _on_ , Harrington”, Billy coaxes, and it's a weird thing to hear Billy Hargrove sound that ... whiny. “You're closer to the door!”

“I was in a _wheelchair_ just now! I've been mauled by a demodog and blinded by some goddamned spores and they've put _stitches_ is my shoulder, apparently.”

“Hey, I was mauled by one of those dogs, too! I have stitches!”

And this is ridiculous. So, _so_ ridiculous. They're both being too stubborn, Steve knows this. Stubborn and childish. He _knows_ , though, that none of them will get the lights, so he resigns himself to trying to get some sleep in a brightly lit room.

“Fine”, he says. “Guess you'll just have to close your eyes for it to get dark, then, because I'm not getting up.”

“Guess so”, is the reply.

They stay silent for a couple of seconds, and then the lights abruptly shut off in the room. A surprised beat of silence, and then they both burst into laughter. Apparently _someone_ got tired of their bickering.

“That answers the question of whether or not they're listening in”, Billy says in a low voice.

“That was never a question”, Steve replies, and sinks deeper into his pillow.

He didn't think he'd be able to sleep under fluorescent lights, but now that they're turned off, he's not sure he can sleep in the darkness either. It reminds him too much of the Upside Down; the dark corners of the room make him think of the room where they'd been hiding from the demodogs after being attacked. His breath hitches, and he feels frozen. Blinking, he's trying to make out the shapes in the room. He can see the corners, barely, and a vague light under the door that leads to the corridor – but he's staring straight ahead and still he can't _see_ , and it's too much like being blind, it's _too much_ –

A muffled curse and some shuffling sounds makes him snap his head up and turn towards the cot. He can just barely make out the shape of Billy getting out of bed.

“Where are you–?”

“Keep your panties on, Harrington”, Billy's voice says in the darkness. “I have to take a piss.”

A moment later, the light turns on in the bathroom and the door closes. A minute later, Billy comes out and goes back to bed.

He forgets to turn off the light in the bathroom. He also forgets to close the bathroom door properly, which means that there's now a warm yellow light seeping into the room. Neither of them mention it.

When they're both lying still in their respective beds, Steve takes a couple of deep breaths. It feels like it's been forever since he slept properly – napping in the Upside Down and being unconscious or in a medically induced sleep doesn’t count – and he's not sure if he remembers how to fall asleep normally now.

“Hey, Harrington?”

A voice in the darkness, which he can latch onto.

“What?”

“'night.”

Steve gives a little smile and closes his eyes. “Goodnight.”


	6. Chapter 6

He wakes up to screaming, and he's immediately terrified and looking around frantically for the source of it until he realizes that it's coming from him; he's the one who's screaming. His heart feels like it's trying to claw its way out of his throat – someone's holding his shoulders, and without thinking he throws out his fist, the only thing going through his head being _get away get away get away_. His fist connects with something hard, and the hands let go of him.

Steve gasps for breath and crawls backwards on whatever soft surface he's on, but his back hits something solid and he can't get any further. He throws himself to the side and falls, hitting a hard floor and continues to crawl away along the wall. Something is clinging to him and he frantically kicks out to make it let go. He ends up in a corner and gets to his feet and holds his hands out, prepared to defend himself at anything that comes at him.

A sudden light blinds him, and he has to duck his head against it.

“Steve, calm down!”

He looks up and sees ... Billy, standing a couple of steps away from him, holding out his hands and taking a cautious step forward, as if Steve is a spooked horse.

And honestly? Steve feels spooked. His heart is still beating loudly in his chest as he looks around the room. The mattress he was lying on is hanging half-way off the bed, and the sheets and blankets have twisted together and are trailing along the wall after him. Billy's cot is standing crooked with the pillow on the floor and the sheets thrown haphazardly to the side, and Billy himself is standing in front of him, eyes wide and a serious expression on his face.

“Steve”, he repeats. “Steve.”

Steve takes a deep breath, then another; tries to will his pulse to slow down.

“What–”, he starts, “what happened ... to 'Harrington'?”

Billy relaxes minutely and lowers his hands, stands up straight.

“You fucking asshole. You scared the hell out of me. I thought you were being attacked or some shit.”

Steve can't seem to convince his body that he's not being attacked at the moment, so he says nothing. Billy frowns and steps closer.

“Hey”, he says, raising his hand in an aborted movement. “You okay there?”

“Yeah”, Steve gasps. “Peachy.”

Billy bends down a bit to try to look Steve in the eyes, and Steve hesitantly looks up. Billy's frowning, but more importantly – Billy's also bleeding.

“You're bleeding.”

Billy drags the back of his hand over his lip but doesn't take his eyes off Steve. “Yeah, well, you got me good there.” He works his jaw and looks thoughtful. “This is actually the second this happens. I’m beginning to think I just shouldn’t wake you up when you start screaming. Hell, if you’d thrown hits like these back when we were fighting for real, then you might have actually had a chance.”

Steve suddenly remembers striking out, just now, and feels bad about it – even though he wasn't fully aware of what he was doing. Billy must see something in his expression, because he breaks out into a grin – and his teeth are bloody too, awesome – and says, “Don't worry about it, Harrington. I've taken harder hits.”

And Steve really wants to say something to diffuse the situation, to make it seem like he's okay, but he can't gather his thoughts enough to form sentences. He's still pressed up against the wall, still shaking.

“Okay”, Billy says when Steve doesn't speak. “You wanna try going back to bed?”

Steve shakes his head. The bed is placed in the middle of the room, with only the headboard to the wall. He doesn't feel brave enough yet to leave this corner and the safety that the two walls at his back provides. He wishes he could open his mouth and offer some kind of explanation, because Billy's just giving him a blank look. After a couple of seconds, the blonde drags a hand over his face and repeats, “Okay”.

He turns and walks to the bed. “Okay”, he says again as he bends down and picks up the mattress; drags it over to the corner where Steve is standing, watching him.

“Move”, Billy says gruffly, and Billy acting grumpy and commanding is such a contrast against the horrors of Steve's nightmare, that he simply does what he's told.

Billy drops the mattress on the floor and kicks it into the corner. He turns without a word, and soon returns with Steve's sheets, which he dumps onto the mattress in a messy pile. Then he gives Steve a _look_ and raises an eyebrow.

“I'm not making your bed for you, Harrington. That’s where I draw the line.”

Steve is surprised into a laugh and that, more than anything else, helps him shake off the remnants of the fear in his system. Gingerly, he sits down on the mattress – making sure to keep his back to the corner. Billy nods, and throws Steve's pillow at him – it hits him in the face, and the surprise of it wakes Steve up properly.

“Hey!”

“Oh shut it, Harrington.”

“I'm ... oh, so we're back to 'Harrington' now?”

Billy says nothing, just gives him a look over his shoulder as he walks back to his cot in the other end of the room. Steve feels his throat constrict as he watches Billy's retreating back, and without thinking he calls out; “Where're you going?”

Billy stops, and turns around slowly, looking at him as if he's questioning Steve's sanity. Slowly, as if he's speaking to a child, he says, “I'm going back to sleep.”

Steve bites down on his lip to stop himself from saying anything else. He looks down at the hands in his lap so that he won’t have to look at Billy. He doesn't want to be alone right now, and he's in that vulnerable state between sleep and wakefulness where he might just admit that out loud. But admitting it to Billy Hargrove would be a huge mistake, he knows this. Despite everything that's happened, they aren't friends. Billy is still ... is still _Billy_. And Steve is still Steve, and no matter what Billy thinks of him, he will _not_ be so pathetic as to admit to that kind of weakness.

Billy doesn't move for a couple of seconds, but then he walks back towards the other end of the room and Steve closes his eyes and tries to think of something other than demodogs and sharp teeth. He is more than surprised when he hears a commotion from Billy's side of the room and looks up to find the other dragging his own mattress and sheets over to Steve's corner.

Steve doesn't say anything, just gapes at him. Billy dumps his stuff on the floor next to Steve – keeping himself between Steve and the door, as if by chance – and doesn't meet his eyes as he beats his pillow into shape and lies down.

“Uh”, Steve says.

“Don't make it weird, Harrington.”

And really, there's nothing else to say. Billy's lying there, on his back with his good arm covering his eyes and the bandaged one resting on his stomach, looking like this is totally normal. Steve's still sitting up, but after a while of this, he starts to feel a little silly. Carefully, he lays down on the mattress – on his side, to take the pressure off his wounded shoulder, with his back to the wall so that he can see the room. See Billy.

He pulls up the blanket to his chin and wets his lips.

“ _Er_ ”, he says.

He watches as Billy lifts his arm and turns his head towards Steve, frowning. “What?”

“Weird _er_. This shit is already as weird as it gets.”

Billy huffs and resumes his previous position.

“Shut up and get some sleep, Harrington.”

“G'night, _Hargrove_.”

It elicits an amused exhale and a flash of a smile from the blonde, but he doesn’t say anything else. Neither does Steve.

It takes a good while for Steve to fall back asleep. The overhead lights are still on – neither Billy nor Steve bothered with turning them off again after what happened – and they cast the room in a bright, artificial light. It beats the darkness, though. And having Billy lying there, close enough to touch if he reached out – it's more of a comfort than Steve is willing to admit, even to himself.

But it helps. He falls asleep eventually. And if he dreams, he doesn't remember it.

*

Morning could have been an awkward affair. He wakes up, not _rested_ but at least less exhausted, and finds that he’s curled up on his side and clutching a blanket in one hand. It’s not his own blanket. He’s clutching _Billy’s_ blanket, and Billy’s still asleep under said blanket, and has somehow gotten closer during the night. They’re not touching, but it still feels … intimate, almost.

Billy is lying on his back, so Steve watches him in profile. His lips are parted slightly and there’s dried blood on his bottom lip. His eyes are closed, and he has the most ridiculous eyelashes Steve has ever seen – on men or women. Not ridiculous as in ‘funny’, more like … _pretty_.

Steve frowns at himself at that thought. He’s not sure where that came from, but he blames it on still being half-asleep.

He’s awake enough now, though.

Billy wakes up when Steve starts squirming, and like he did in the Upside Down, there’s nothing to indicate that he’s not asleep anymore except for his eyes suddenly opening. This time, though, Steve is treated to a few dazed blinks of glassy eyes, and a suppressed yawn. And Steve only sees it now because he’s looking really closely.

Billy turns his head and looks straight into Steve’s eyes before Steve has a chance to … look away, or pretend to sleep, or whatever he should have done – and this is where things should get awkward. Steve tenses up and instinctively curls up a little, but since he’s still holding Billy’s blanket, all that does is pull on it and make Billy aware of that _Steve is holding Billy’s blanket_.

And it _really_ should be getting awkward right about now.

But Billy just blinks again, slowly, and leans down to scratch lazily at his belly. Then he throws a casual glance around the room and asks, “What time is it?”

He seems to realize what a stupid question that is, as a clock hasn’t magically appeared in their room overnight, and amends, “Never mind. Did you sleep?”

Steve nods, wordlessly, as he waits for Billy to freak out about their sleeping arrangements. But Billy just gets up off the floor, stretches, and walks to the bathroom. On the way there he tries the other door, but as it’s still locked, he just shrugs.

While Billy’s in the bathroom, Steve pulls himself up. Sits gingerly in the corner for a minute, before he licks his lips and gets up. He’s swaying a little where he’s standing and his headache is back – but it’s way more manageable than it was yesterday and he feels well enough to be hungry. As if summoned by his thoughts, there’s a knock on the door – their jailors are polite, at least – and one of the white-clad men from yesterday enters with a “good morning” and a tray that he sets down on the little table on the opposite wall.

If he notices the way the slept – and he must, because the bed and cot are both empty and all the bedding is basically in a pile in the corner – he doesn’t mention it. Steve is grateful for it. He is even more grateful when the man leaves, after telling him that he’ll come for them later.

Billy chooses to come out of the bathroom just as the man has locked the door behind him, and Steve can’t help but think he timed it like that on purpose.

“Who was that?”

Billy’s hair is damp, as is his T-shirt, and his face is red as if he’s tried scrubbing it clean.

Steve shrugs. “One of the guys from yesterday.” When he sees Billy’s shoulders tense up, he adds, “Not the one with the busted nose. The other one.”

“Oh. I don’t know his name. What did he want?”

As if he wasn’t listening from the bathroom. Steve indulges him, though.

“He said he’d come for us later, for some kind of meeting? Oh, and he brought us breakfast.”

So they sit down at the table, and have breakfast together. After sleeping next to each other on the floor. After sharing a room in a secret government facility somewhere. After being rescued from the Upside Down, where they ran for their lives and managed to save each other’s lives several times.

And maybe it’s not so strange, after all, that simply waking up next to each other is not awkward. Because considering everything they’ve been through, Steve honestly doubts that he’d raise an eyebrow if the Abominable Snowman kicked in their door at this point.

To quote Billy from last night; ‘don’t make it weird’. Everything was already _so_ _weird_. There was absolutely no reason to make it weirder. Sleeping close to each other? Is _nothing_ , all things compared.

And with that, Steve puts it behind him and bites into his sandwich.

*

An hour or so after breakfast, the man who brought their food comes back to fetch them. Another man is with him – one that Billy seems to shy away from, for reasons unknown – and the both of them escort Steve and Billy through a maze of corridors into an office.

The man from yesterday – the one with the clipboard, who’d come in when Steve had just woken up – is sitting behind a large desk filled with piles and piles of papers, newspapers and folders, and in the light coming in from the window, his skin looks so pale it’s almost blue. Today is not sunny, Steve notices as he stares out the window, but he doesn’t mind. Even the rolling grey clouds of the outside is a thousand times better than the Upside Down sky, which was just … _lifeless_. He sees Billy stare out through the window, too, and wonders if this is the first he sees of the outside since they got out of the Upside Down.

The man clears his throat to catch their attention, and motions for them to sit in the two chairs on the other side of the desk from him.

“Well, boys”, he starts when they’ve sat down and the two men who escorted them has left. “I think we can all agree that this has been quite a mess.”

He leans back in his chair and watches them. Steve doesn’t know what to say. Should he say something?

Obviously his input isn’t necessary, because the man continues, “You’ve been through a lot. We’re sorry this happened to you, but we hope that you both understand what an opportunity this is. You have spent a day and a night in an environment that humans aren’t fully equipped to live in, and you’ve come out on the other side mostly unharmed.”

Steve wouldn’t have put it that way, since he got chewed on by a demodog and apparently has a shoulder full of stitches, and he’s sure that Billy agrees with him – but Billy isn’t talking back, which somehow lessens Steve’s desire to comment, as well. When he glances over at Billy, the blonde is clenching his jaw so hard that it looks like it hurts.

“We have questions. You have provided us with some answers. Your bodies have suffered through unknown trauma, and we have done what we can to help you – but this, too, is something we can learn from. If this happens again, God forbid, we want to know what we can encounter in that place. We must know more about it, to learn how to counter everything in it.”

Steve can’t keep quiet anymore. “So, what”, he says, “you’re gonna … go back there? Send people in? What?”

The man’s eyes flick to his in obvious displeasure of being interrupted, but he answers nonetheless.

“We may have to. To learn more.”

“Why not just … close the gate? Make sure no one else has to go there, ever again. And make sure that nothing from there can get out.”

The man smiles indulgently, like a parent might at a child’s first crayon scribbles. “There are things you don’t understand – and frankly, that you’re not allowed to know. The only thing you need to know is that we’re working for the best of this country, and that it is our goal that no American will ever be put in harm’s way. What happened to the two of you was an unfortunate accident, and one that we would have prevented, if we’d been able. As it is, though, we will have to make the best of a bad situation.”

“When will we be able to go home?” Steve asks, voice tight. He stopped listening around when the man gave him that condescending smile.

“Not today”, the man answers, and when Steve opens his mouth to speak, he adds, “because none of you are well enough, yet. You, Mr. Harrington, had minor surgery only two days ago, and Dr. Johnson tells me that Mr. Hargrove here was very close to losing his arm. If they hadn’t gotten rid of that infection, they’d probably have had to amputate.”

Steve turns to Billy, just in time to see him swallow hard and lick his lips. The man continues, “You’ll be able to return home soon, but not just yet. We want to make sure you’re well enough, first, as well as take a few samples.”

“Samples?” Billy’s voice, when he speaks, is measured.

“Yes. There is a lot to be learned about that place, and some questions we have can’t be answered simply by asking. And you both spent a significant amount of time there. Like it or not, that place got in your lungs, your blood – your bodies. We will not be releasing you from here until we’re sure that all traces of it are gone.”

Steve remembers last year, what happened to Will and everything that went down because he’d gotten infected with something that no one noticed, and hates that what the man says makes sense.

“Naturally”, the man continues and reaches for one of the piles on his desk, “we don't want the public to find out about this. There would be panic, and there’s nothing to be gained from that. Of course, you'll have to sign non-disclosure agreements before you leave ...”

He holds up two stacks of papers.

“... and then there’s one more thing. As you won’t be allowed to speak of this to anyone once you leave here, you obviously can’t go back to your families without a cover story.”

He puts two folders down in front of them. Billy immediately reaches out and snatches his up, but Steve is more hesitant. The man nods for him to take it, and when he does, and opens it, he finds a bunch of papers that look like ...

“Hospital records?” Billy says and flips a page. He draws in a sharp breath at whatever he reads, and Steve just _knows_ how he looks like when he drawls, “ _This_ is our cover story? _Really_?”

The man ignores the sass, leans back in his chair.

“Here's what happened”, he says. ”You were leaving for a concert in Chicago. You didn't want anyone to know, so you left your cars and hitch-hiked. On the way there, there was an accident. The car hit a deer, and you were taken to South Chicago Hospital. The driver unfortunately didn't make it, but you two were lucky. You've been there ever since. That explains your injuries, and your cars.”

“Yeah, sure”, Billy says sarcastically, nodding along. “And you expect people to believe that? That me and Harrington are _such_ good friends that we'll go to a concert in Chicago together? We're not–” He hesitates, glances at Steve, and falters. ”–friends.”

“You are now”, the man says simply before he continues as if he wasn't just interrupted. ”Your families have been informed of the accident, and someone has called them once a day _from the hospital_ to keep them up to date with your recovery.”

Steve can see Billy go still in the corner of his eye.

”You told our _families_ this bullshit?”

”No”, is the answer. ”We told your families the _truth_. Which is what I just told you.”

“Can we talk to them?” Steve asks.

“Not now”, the man answers. “Some of them were dead set on visiting you when they heard what happened, but there was a … convenient outbreak of a dangerous bacteria in the hospital, so your ward was put in quarantine. To keep you out of harm’s way, of course. We feed them updates, and they have a phone number they can use to reach the staff, if they have questions.”

The man picks up two pieces of paper from a pile in front of him and hands one to Steve, and one to Billy. “These are your official statements. Read through them carefully, make sure you memorize them, and sign at the bottom.”

Steve takes the paper and skims through it. _Wanted to go to a concert but didn't want to drive that long in the dark ... Billy talked about it a few days prior ... They decided to hitch-hike ... Picked up by a man in his thirties, said his name was Al ... Drove for a while, then the crash. Didn't see what caused it. Woke up at the hospital, blah blah blah ..._ He clears his throat.

“Billy's right. No one will believe that me and Billy are friends.” He feels bad as he’s saying it, because while he and Billy might be at least friendlier _now,_ they certainly weren’t a couple of days ago. And just about everyone knew that. “I mean ...”

“What happens if we don't sign it?” Billy interrupts, slamming the paper down on the desk.

“Then you don't leave”, the man answers, calmly.

Steve stares at him. So does Billy, probably. The air in the room suddenly feels colder.

“Look”, the man sighs. “It's really simple. _This_ ...” He indicates the statements. “... is the truth, now. You can say whatever you want to people, as long as it fits into _that_ reality. If we can't come to an agreement today, then maybe our doctors were wrong. Maybe you won’t be well enough to leave in the near future.”

“You can't keep us here forever”, Steve says without thinking.

The man just smiles.

“And if we sign it?” Billy asks. “You'll let us go then? Like, you'll just ... let us go? Just like that?”

“Yes”, the man says, and then he drops his smile and leans forward in his chair. “But that is, of course, provided that you stick to the story. You will tell _no one_ about what you really went through. You will not mention _one word_ of it to _anyone_. Do you understand?”

_Don’t ask_ , Steve thinks when he hears Billy inhale beside him. _Please don’t ask, I don’t want to know_. But of course Billy asks, anyway.

“Or what?”

The man makes eye contact with them both, and the temperature in the room reaches Upside Down levels of chilly. “Then we will make your lives a living hell. We will ruin you and everyone close to you.”

“You can't do that”, Steve says, but his voice is shaking. “There are laws, there's–”

“We can do anything we want”, the man says and picks up a folded newspaper. He throws it carelessly to the other side of the desk so they can see it.

“Page 5”, he says helpfully.

Steve reaches out and opens the paper to the correct page, and when he sees what's there, he takes a deep breath and holds it, eyes wide. It's just a quarter of a page, more a notice than a story really, with a picture of a totaled car by the side of the road. The headline proclaims: ”One dead, two wounded in car crash”. The dead man was apparently Albert Haynes from Indianapolis, who was heading towards Chicago when he crashed. The two young men that were travelling with him in the car survived, but were injured and taken to the hospital.

Steve is gaping; can feel a chill down his spine. That is a picture of a _real_ car crash. In a _real_ newspaper, from this Sunday.

The man repeats, voice cold, “We can do _anything_. Don't doubt that.”

He turns to Billy, and looks him straight in the eye.

“We _will_ be watching you, and we will know _instantly_ if you violate the terms of our little agreement. And you won't like the consequences, Mr. Hargrove.”

Billy swallows, but says nothing. The man then turns his eyes to Steve.

“Mr. Harrington.”

Steve, too, stays silent. The man takes that as compliance and nods, satisfied, before standing.

“Now, if you'll excuse me. I’m a busy man. Someone will take you back to your room. Feel free to bring the folders, you can read through the information and get your stories straight.”

He holds out a pen towards Billy, and doesn't speak or move until Billy slowly reaches out to take it from him. The man smiles, and it makes the hairs on the back of Steve’s neck stand on end. “Good boy.”

Steve hears a sharp intake of breath from Billy, but just then the door opens and the men who escorted them there in the first place are standing in the doorway, waiting for them. Steve stands up, as if in a daze. He feels dizzy and his heart is beating fast in his chest, and he doesn't know if it's fear or anger or hopelessness that he's feeling. As they turn to leave the room, he says, “Wait, wait ...”

The man, who has already turned back to the papers on his desk, looks up questioningly.

“Does Hopper know?”

The man makes a face as if he smelled something foul, but it's gone in an instant. He nods his head once, and says, “Jim Hopper is a special case. He knows more than most about our work. So yes, he's been made aware of the special circumstances surrounding your absence.”

His eyes harden.

“He has _also_ been informed about your official statements, and what it was that – for all intents and purposes – _really happened_. He has been, in a way, a liaison between us and your families. I would suggest that you meet with him when you get back, and talk things through, just the three of you.”

He turns back to his papers before he adds, “I also suggest that you never speak of it again, after that.”

And then Steve and Billy are being ushered out of the room, and through the same corridors that they walked through just a while ago. Steve is gripping his folder and the newspaper hard in his hand, and he doesn't dare look at Billy.

They get back to their room, and their guides make sure they get in properly before they close and lock the door behind them. And then they're alone.

It takes a couple of seconds, then, “ _Fuck_!”

Billy throws the folder to the floor and crouches, back against the wall, running his fingers through his hair and pulling at it.

“He's gonna kill me”, he says, so low that it's almost a whisper. And maybe it wasn't meant for Steve's ears, but he heard it, and he grimaces.

“He won't kill you”, he says, trying to ease Billy’s distress. “He said that if you sign it, he'll let us go.”

Billy gives a hollow laugh and looks up at Steve. There's pure anguish on his face, and Steve is momentarily taken aback.

“Not him. I don't care about him. My _dad's_ gonna kill me. They told him that I was hitch-hiking to see a goddamn concert, with _you_ –”

Steve gives a nervous little laugh and only hesitates a little before he gingerly sits down beside Billy, back to the wall.

“I mean, you _were_ just released from the hospital. Maybe he's gonna be lenient about the whole hitch-hiking to Chicago thing?”

Billy throws his head back, hard, to bang it against the wall. He closes his eyes and swallows. Works his jaw. Then, “Yeah. Maybe.”

“My mom's probably not gonna let me out of the house until New Year's”, Steve offers.

Billy takes a couple of deep breaths, then he gives a shaky nod and works up a teasing grin.

“Poor Steve Harrington, stuck in a huge house all alone.”

Steve laughs, relieved that the tension is at least somewhat dispersed. “Oh I won't be alone.”

“No?”

“Nope. You think those kids will leave me alone for a _minute_ after this? Not very likely, my friend.”

The second the word ‘friend’ leaves his mouth, Steve feels the truth of it. No matter what he said to the creepy man in the office just now, he knows that he _does_ consider Billy a friend. And judging by Billy’s smile, which looks _real_ this time, the feeling is mutual.

“Besides”, Steve continues. “I have my own place now, since a couple of months.”

“Really?” Billy sounds honestly surprised, and a little wistful. “Must be nice.”

“Yeah, it is. It’s just a one-bedroom apartment, and the neighbors are loud, but it’s … Yeah, it’s really nice.” A beat, then; “You're welcome to visit any time.”

Billy stills, and then ducks his head and glances over at Steve.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”


	7. Chapter 7

The rest of the day pass in a blur.

Their white-clad guides come back to escort them to a medical check-up, where Steve gets to talk more with Dr. Johnson. What follows is another hour of poking and prodding, and rinsing out his eyes and staring into various light sources, and having Dr. Johnson and the nurse change his bandages and inspect the healing process.

The doctor makes pleased noises, which prompts Steve into asking when he can go home. Dr. Johnson hums and says that if nothing spectacular happens, and if Steve will make sure to get proper check-ups, he could probably go home as early as tomorrow.

_If you behave yourself_ , is not explicitly _said_ , but Steve hears it anyway.

Steve is brought back to his and Billy’s room just in time for a light lunch. Billy is already there, and is waiting for him by the table (the image makes Steve smile; Billy could have started eating, after all, but instead he chose to wait for Steve).

After lunch, no one bothers them for a couple of hours. They use the time by going through the folders they got, containing everything they need to know about their cover stories.

“This won’t work”, Steve says after he’s read through all of it once. “No offence, but no one’s gonna believe that the two of us were friendly enough before all this to wanna go to a concert together.”

“I know”, Billy groans and tries to smother himself with a pillow. They’re both sitting on Steve’s bed (both the mattresses and the bedding were back on the bed and the cot, respectively, when they returned to the room after their meeting with the man), even though Billy is currently half-lying across it.

“Maybe we got past our differences?” Steve tries. “Like, you saw me at work and was like ‘hey, now when school’s out maybe I should build bridges, not burn them’?”

Billy levels him with a look. “Yeah, because _that_ sounds like me.”

“Okay, fine!” Steve says. “So _I_ saw _you_ and thought ‘hey, now when school’s out maybe we should let bygones be bygones’ or whatever. And we started talking, and somehow didn’t kill each other, and found out that we both liked that band, and then you mentioned that they were having a concert and I suggested that we go there. Because, you know, building bridges and bygones and blah blah blah.”

Billy gives a deep sigh. “Fine.”

“Come on, Billy, this is important. Does that work, or what?”

“Sorry”, Billy says and pinches the bridge of his nose (and Steve is momentarily dumbstruck because he has never heard an apology from Billy before – but Billy doesn’t even seem to notice that he said it). “Yeah, that works. We’ll go with that. Where _do_ you work, by the way?”

“Oh. At the mall. Ice cream shop.”

Billy looks up, disbelief written all over his face. “What? Really?”

Steve makes a face. “Yeah. It’s a shit job, and I was only supposed to do it for the summer, but … yeah.”

“Huh. I always figured you’d do some white-collar work after school.”

Steve thinks of his dad, how he’s never home. He thinks of the argument that they had before Steve graduated. He thinks of his mother. What he _says_ is, “I think I needed to do something … independent. You know?”

Billy nods as if he understands. _And maybe he does_ , Steve thinks. Maybe Billy knows about needing his independence.

“I’ll probably get fired now, though. Not showing up at work for … however long we’ve been here. How about you? Do you work?”

Turns out, Billy’s working two jobs; trying to save up enough money to move out from under his father’s roof. _Yeah_ , Steve thinks. _Billy understands._

“Okay”, Billy says and claps his hands together as he sits up on the bed. “New story; I saw you at the mall, and went over to give you shit about it.”

“At least that’s in character”, Steve mutters.

Billy grins at him. “Yup. And while we were talking you did your whole building bridges thing, and the rest like you just said.”

“That’s not a _new story_. That’s the story that I just came up with.”

“Yeah, but in this version I get to give you shit for working at an ice cream shop.”

“Whatever.” Steve shoves him, but Billy only smirks, which is honestly yet another proof of how far they’ve come.

They go through their story until they feel that it’s at least somewhat believable – at least to anyone that isn’t already in the know about the Upside Down (they don’t mention the kids out loud, in case someone’s listening in, but they both know that _some people_ definitely won’t be fooled).

Later, they’re again taken from the room. Steve is escorted by the guy with the busted nose (Hank, was it?) this time, and finds him to be grumpy and unpleasant company. He’s glad when the guy stays outside the room he’s shown into. There, he meets with a bespectacled man who doesn’t introduce himself but must be some kind of psychiatrist, judging by how he spends what must be hours asking Steve questions about how he’s faring and how he’s feeling and what he’ll do when he gets home.

Not many people knows this about Steve, but he’s actually pretty good at reading people. And what can he say? He’s a people pleaser. So he thinks of the possibility of going home tomorrow, and he gives the man the answers he thinks he’s looking for.

When he gets back to their room, Billy is once again waiting for him, wearing a shit-eating grin.

“What took you so long, Harrington? You’ve been gone forever – does it really take so long to talk about your feelings?”

Billy being obnoxious feels like coming home.

They are eventually brought dinner, and also get a little plastic cup each which contains painkillers (Steve doesn’t fully trust any pills they’re given, but Billy throws them into his mouth and swallows them dry with a “Bottoms up!”, so he takes them anyway. And they _do_ help, after a while.)

Steve doesn’t want to go to sleep. He’s tired – it’s been a long and mentally taxing day – but he doesn’t want to go to bed only to have a repeat of last night. He’s honestly _afraid_ to go to sleep; scared of the nightmares he knows lurks in his mind. He hasn’t been afraid to sleep in almost a year now, and he’s not happy that that particular fear has returned.

Billy stays up with him, and doesn’t mention being tired or wanting to sleep, even though he must be as beat as Steve. They’ve pushed Steve’s bed against the wall, so that they can both sit in it with their backs to the wall, and Billy’s brought the pillow from his cot so he can rest his bandaged arm against it. They’re talking, about everything and nothing, and Billy’s gesturing with his good arm when he gets particularly enthusiastic about something. He keeps chewing on a tiny plastic spoon that he stole from the dinner tray, and it should look ridiculous but Steve finds it oddly … charming.

Maybe it’s the pills, maybe it’s his exhaustion, maybe it’s just Billy’s presence at his side – but Steve finds himself relaxing, and he slides down a little against the wall. Both he and Billy take longer to reply to each other, and his eyes start to drift shut.

He doesn’t notice falling asleep.

*

He wakes up later, but not from a nightmare. The overhead lights are off, but the door to the bathroom is open and there is a comforting light coming from there. His head feels fuzzy. He’s still half-sitting against the wall, but he’s leaning against something warm. He turns his head and blinks blearily at Billy, who is the ‘something warm’ he was leaning against.

Sitting up and sleeping doesn’t look very comfortable when you’re injured, Steve thinks, and his own shoulder aches. He shifts on the bed and pulls on Billy’s T-shirt. The other boy makes a noise of complaint, but Steve answer it with a whine of his own. He doesn’t _want_ to sleep sitting up. He’s _tired_.

*

He wakes up warm.

It’s nice.

The lights are back on – he can see it through his closed eyelids, and he doesn’t want to open his eyes.

He buries his head deeper in the pillow and pulls the blanket up.

The blanket is stuck.

Also someone’s breathing on his face.

His eyes snap open, and he finds himself staring into Billy’s impossibly blue eyes, barely a whisper between them. He jerks back, but have nowhere to go because his back is already to the wall.

He’s lying on his side, face to face with Billy. Steve’s hand is not gripping a blanket; it’s gripping Billy’s T-shirt. Billy’s good arm is under Steve’s pillow. They are very, very close – even though they’re not touching.

“Oh thank god you’re awake”, Billy groans. “My arm fell asleep like an hour ago.”

He gently pulls it out from under the pillow and flexes his hand a couple of times. When he’s done, there’s no room between them for him to place it anywhere else than on his own shoulder, so he does.

Steve’s mouth is dry.

“Um”, he says.

This close, there’s really no way for Steve to miss the slight blush that creeps up on Billy’s face. The tiny part of Steve that isn’t mortified or panicking is strangely _delighted_ at that.

“ _Um_ ”, he says again, with emphasis. Because has Billy been watching him sleep for an hour? Why didn’t he just wake Steve up if he wanted to get away?

Billy answers the question that must be all over Steve’s face. “You, uh, looked like you needed the sleep.”

And that doesn’t make sense. Billy Hargrove is not the kind of person to let someone sleep on him when he’s uncomfortable just because that person needs the sleep. Especially if that person is Steve.

Except.

Except maybe he is.

Except Billy carried Steve to safety in the Upside Down and guided him when he couldn’t see. Except Billy agreed to behave himself in exchange for getting to see Steve. Except since they were rescued from the Upside Down, Billy has been nothing but a steadying presence; has been Safe and Helpful and even helped Steve calm down after a nightmare.

Steve frowns at the realization: Billy Hargrove is _not an asshole_.

Billy misinterprets his frown, probably, and pulls back. “You looked like shit, so I figured you needed all the beauty sleep you could get.”

Okay, so Billy Hargrove is a _bit_ of an asshole. Just not when it counts.

Steve’s hand is still gripping Billy’s T-shirt, so Billy can’t back away too far before that grip stops him. They both look down at Steve’s hand. When they look up, their eyes meet and Billy opens his mouth to speak. Steve beats him to it, though.

“I know. ‘Don’t make it weird.’”

Billy huffs out a surprised laugh, but the tension in his shoulders melts away. “I _was_ gonna say that we should probably get up. They probably turned on the lights to wake us up –“, _and avoid having to walk in on us in bed together_ , he doesn’t say, “– but yeah. That too.”

*

The morning is decidedly non-awkward, which is weird in itself. But Steve feels _good_. The painkiller he gets along with his breakfast lessen the ache in his shoulder, and his mood is improved even more at the morning checkup with Dr. Johnson, when the man tells him that there’s basically no reason to keep him here any longer, as long as he makes sure to get proper treatment when he gets home.

So when he and Billy are summoned into the creepy man’s office just before lunch, Steve grits his teeth and resolves to say and do anything he needs to, for them to be allowed to go home today.

The man waves them in and has them sit down in the chairs on the other end of his desk once again, and then he holds up the papers they'd signed the previous day and points to the last line, where they both scribbled their names.

“Do you know what these signatures means?” he asks without preamble.

They're _so close_ to being released – Steve can practically _taste_ it. He's not risking that for anything, even though there are a thousand things he wants to object to. So he nods, because that’s the reaction the man wants. Beside him, Billy does the same.

Of course, the man tells them anyway.

“It means that you will not speak to anyone about the things that have happened to you. It means that you will stick to the story that you've been provided with.” Steve nods along. This, he knows. The man continues; “It _also_ means that you will come in, when we send for you, and let us do a medical check to make sure that there are no lasting effects from your time spent in … that place.”

He looks them over and straightens up in his chair. “You will also contact us if you notice anything out of the ordinary, or if you're starting to feel different in any way. You may not like me, or us, but believe me when I say that we are the ones who are best equipped to handle anything that might happen. To help you, if you need it. Remember that.”

Putting the papers they signed into a folder, he lays it on top of a pile of other folders on his desk.

“Dr. Johnson tells me that you are both well enough to be released today, if measures are taken to ensure you’re getting the proper medical attention. Now, today is Wednesday. You will be called into Hawkins’ Medical Center for a first check-up no later than Friday. We’ll have someone there who’s in the know, who will report back to us. You _will_ show up. And you will speak to this person, and this person _only_ , about all things concerning the treatment of your injuries, do you understand?”

They both nod.

“Now when that’s out of the way – are you aware of what will happen if you choose to break our agreement?”

_Actually no_ , Steve thinks but doesn't say. _The threats were very vague._ But again, he nods. This time, the man thankfully doesn't elaborate; he only smiles and leans back in his chair.

“Then we have nothing more to discuss. Here's what's going to happen today: We will take you back to your cars, which are parked at a diner parking lot. From there, you will each go back home. You'll call Jim Hopper and go through what _happened_ –” He gives them a significant look, “– and then you'll resume your lives and forget about all of this. It's for the best. Do you understand?”

They nod for what feels like the thousandth time, but that is apparently not enough this time. “Say that you understand.”

Steve glances over at Billy and sees that he's clenching his fists so hard that his knuckles are white. It doesn't sit well with Steve, either, but–

“I understand”, he murmurs, and a second later Billy spits it out, too.

“Now, the only thing you have to do is call your families and tell them that you're getting released.”

And then he's holding out the phone to Steve. And Steve, who's been demanding to speak to his family for days now, suddenly doesn't know what to say. He takes the phone and licks his lips. Hesitates before dialing the familiar number.

He's suddenly afraid – that no one will pick up, that someone _will_ pick up, that he won't be able to sell the story enough to satisfy the man’s expectations and he'll have to stay here forever, _or worse_. And then someone picks up on the other end, and he hears his mother's voice, sounding breathless.

“Hello?”

And something unclenches in his heart, because it doesn't matter that he's legally an adult and that he's got his own apartment and that him and his parents have never really been what you would call _close_ – he's been through hell and this is still his _mother_. His voice cracks when he tries to speak.

“Hi mom.”

“Steve? Oh my god, Steve?!”

Her voice wobbles, and it sounds like she’s about to cry. Steve's eyes are not entirely dry either, so he's trying to turn his body so that the others in the room can't see.

“Yeah, it's me.”

“Steve?! Oh my baby, are you okay? We've been so worried! We wanted to come visit every day, but the doctors wouldn't let us. I’ve barely slept! I'm just ... are you okay?”

Steve smiles into the phone. “Yeah mom, I'm fine. I'm actually calling to tell you that we're being released today.”

“ _Darling_!” his mother squeals so loud that he has to hold the phone away from his ear. “Do you need us to pick you up? We'll come pick you up, or send a car!”

“No, no, mom. It's good. We're getting a lift back and then picking up our cars, so ... it's gonna be okay.” He glances at the man seated on the other side of the desk – but it doesn't seem like he's given away too much. Still, better end it while he's ahead. “Mom, I have to go, but I'll see you tonight, okay?”

“Okay. Oh darling, I can't wait to see you! I love you so much!”

Steve smiles, and feels very aware of the others in the room when he replies, “I love you too. See you later. Bye.”

Hanging up is both a relief, and difficult. The man looks neutral, so Steve probably didn't mess anything up too badly and may very well be allowed to go home soon and see his mother for real. Steve rubs at his eyes. Their reunion is going to be an emotional affair, he can tell.

He isn’t aware of that Billy's taken the phone until he hears his gruff voice coming from next to him. “Hey, Susan.”

He tries to give the other boy his privacy by looking away, but they are in a silent room and he can't help but listen in. “Yeah, yeah I'm ... I'm fine. I'm– No, no, don't–” A pause, during which Billy sighs softly. When he speaks again, he sounds tired. “Hi dad ... Yes. Yes, I know. Actually, I'm getting released today, from the ... from the hospital, so ... Yeah. _Yes_.”

Silence, for a long time, then; “Yes sir.”

There's no goodbye, he just goes silent. Steve looks over to see him hand the phone back to the man, who puts it back on its place on the desk and nods.

“Good”, he says. “I am sorry for what you had to go through, but now we have to concentrate on the future. Take care, gentlemen.”

And with that, he nods. The door opens behind them, and Steve once again wonders if this place has someone who's only job is to lurk behind doors and open them at the right time, for dramatic effect. Two of their usual escorts are waiting for them, and Steve and Billy walk out. Steve doesn't look back – if he never sees that man or that office again, it'll be too soon. When Steve closes the door behind him, Billy flips the door off. Steve catches his eye and smiles.

They follow the men through the corridors and down a flight of stairs, until they stop by a door. The taller of the two takes them inside while the shorter stays outside in the hallway.

On a table, there's two small piles of things; one is handed to Billy and the other to Steve.

“Your things.”

Dumbfounded, Steve finds himself holding his watch, his wallet and his keys, as well as his shoes. They have been cleaned – haven't looked this clean since they were brand new.

Billy's already putting his necklace back around his neck, and Steve sees him pocketing the earring – and it doesn't occur to him until now that Billy hasn't been wearing them for these last few days. The rest of Billy's belongings seem to be the same as for Steve – shoes, wallet, keys – and also Steve's sweater, neatly folded up and likely as clean as the shoes. Naturally, they must have thought it was Billy’s, since Billy was the one wearing it.

“Where's the rest?” Billy says.

The tall one shrugs. “This is what could be salvaged.”

And Steve gets it. The rest of their clothes were not only bloody, but _torn_. Claws-and-teeth-kinda torn – there’s no way that could have been explained away with them being in a car accident. And even though a part of him wants to argue – those were some nice pants! – what he _really_ wants to do right now is get out of here, so he says nothing.

Billy has no qualms about voicing his displeasure, though.

“Maybe you could have just left that for us to decide, huh?”

The man doesn't reply, just motions for them to put on their shoes.

“I had half a pack of cigarettes”, Billy says stubbornly, making the man roll his eyes. ”Surely _that_ could be salvaged.”

“Give it a rest, kid”, he says. “Now, come on. We don't have all day.”

Billy catches Steve's eyes and throws his good arm up in a “can you believe this shit”–gesture. Steve leans towards him and whispers; “If you shut up _right now_ , I'll buy you ten packs when we're out of here.”

Billy grins. “I'll hold you to that.”

They follow their guides into what can only be an underground garage, where the shorter of the two is waiting for them by a white unmarked van.

“This doesn't look suspicious or anything”, Steve remarks, quietly.

“Nope. No risk of getting murdered here”, is Billy's equally quiet reply. Out loud, he says, “Oh we're going out? If I'd known, I'd brought my jacket. Oh wait, you guys took that!” He turns to Steve. “Guess we'll freeze.”

The tall one shakes his head with something that might have been a smile and mutters “cocky little shit” as he leans into the passenger's seat of the van. When he turns, he throws a grey bundle at each of them.

“Oooh, a sweatshirt! You _shouldn’t_ have.”

Half of Steve wants to laugh at Billy's sarcasm, and the other half wants to whack him over the head to make him stop antagonizing the people who have the power to grant them freedom.

“Shut up”, he sing-songs under his breath. “Or no cigarettes.”

Billy just grins at him, tongue peeking out through his teeth.

“Get in the van”, the shorter man says while the other one hops into the driver's seat.

Steve does, and is followed by a – thankfully silent – Billy. The door is closed behind them. Locked. There are no locks on the inside, no way for them to get out. Steve feels himself start to sweat, and something like fear makes the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. Then he feels the car door slam shut, and the car starts up. For a few short seconds, Steve is overwhelmed with panic – they're _trapped_ , and again at the complete mercy of these people; they'll take them out in the woods and shoot them, or drive the car off a cliff, or–

“ _Steve_.”

Billy's voice, and the hand on his good shoulder, shakes him out of his own head. Billy's close, crouching by his side and watching him with something akin to worry. It's such a contrast to the cocky Billy that just mouthed off to their captors, that it baffles Steve for a second.

“You doing okay there?” Billy says – or starts to say. Right at that moment the driver puts the van in 'drive', so when it jerks into motion Billy loses his balance and basically falls into Steve's lap, and what comes out of his mouth is more like “You doing okay th _aaaah_!”

Steve stares at Billy, who's sprawled out over his legs and fighting to get up while cursing up a storm – looking like a particularly clumsy starfish – and he can't help himself. He starts laughing – and if the laughter is slightly tinted with hysteria, it's nobody's business but his.

“Fuckers can't even drive ...” Billy mutters as he gets up and glares. And Steve is delighted, because Billy's cheeks are tinted red again; visible even in the low light.

“Are _you_ doing okay there, Billy?” he teases, earning himself a raised middle-finger and a muted “fuck you”. Steve's laughter intensifies. A corner of Billy's mouth twitches into something that wants to be a smile, and he visibly fights against it.

“Yeah, yeah, laugh it up Harrington.”

“I am!”

Billy looks like he wants to say more – and Steve knows that there is a lot more he _could_ say – but in the end he just arranges himself so that he's sitting opposite to Steve.

They both have their legs out. Their legs are touching.

“So”, Steve starts conversationally, “Do you think they're gonna kill us?”

Billy makes a face of confusion and dismay. He turns his head to the side as if he maybe misheard something. ” _What_?”

Steve, feeling a little silly, shrugs and gestures around them. “You know, with the ... van, and ...”

“What is _wrong_ with you?” Billy exclaims. “They're not gonna kill us _now_ , after putting us through all that just to keep us alive!”

Strangely, that makes Steve feels a little better. Billy's rolling his eyes at him and kicking him lightly. “You’re an idiot”, he says, voice softer.

The van takes a turn at that moment, and Billy has to put his hands to the floor to avoid losing his balance. It makes him grimace. Steve notices.

“You hurt?”

“Nah. Landed on the arm, that's all.”

Billy looks up and sees the expression on Steve's face, and smiles a little.

“Aw, Harrington, you _do_ care ...”

“I do.”

The smile on Billy's face freezes, and for a second he looks like he's going to treat it like a joke – even though Steve was more serious than he's maybe willing to admit – but then his smile softens.

“Maybe it won't be so difficult after all ... to convince people that we're friends.”

“Oh it'll be difficult”, Steve says with conviction. “Everyone I know will think that I'm insane because I'm willing to hang out with you now. I guess I can blame it on the concussion. And the kids will probably think that you _gave_ me that concussion!”

Grinning, Billy replies, “Well, we apparently spent four days in a hospital together, with basically nothing to do. There's no better way to bond than to be bored together.”

“Except fighting monsters, maybe.”

Billy gives him a look. Licks his lips.

“Yeah. Except fighting monsters.”

They lapse into silence. It's comfortable – they're swaying slightly with the van's movements, and the sound of the engine is almost soothing. Therefore, Steve almost doesn't hear it when Billy speaks next.

“For the record”, he says. “I do, too.”

Steve looks over. “Hm?”

“Care”, Billy spits out, and looks like he immediately regrets it. He's not looking at Steve, he's just scowling down at his hand, which he's clenched into a fist.

Steve _could_ make it a joke. He could say that Billy looks more uncomfortable now than he ever did in the Upside Down. He could tease him, or hold it over his head. But after everything they’ve been through, how could he?

In the end, what he does is stay quiet, look down at his own hands, and gently nudge Billy's leg with his own. Out of the corner of his eyes, he can see Billy's posture relax.

They don't speak again for the rest of the ride.

*

It's maybe half an hour, maybe 45 minutes (Steve forgot to check his watch) until the van pulls over and stops. Steve and Billy look at each other, and get up without a word. When the door to the van opens, they're standing shoulder to shoulder, prepared for whatever will happen. It's pretty anticlimactic, though. The taller man just waves at them to get out of the van, and when they do, they find themselves on an unpaved parking lot behind a nondescript building. The air is cold and crisp; the sky overhead is grey – but Steve, who hasn't been under the real sky since Friday, thinks it's _beautiful_.

The other man is standing by an old brown BMW, chatting with a third man – slim, with a neat moustache – and when he sees them he beckons them closer.

“Now what?” Steve mutters. The words are only meant for Billy, and he receives a nudge of shoulders in reply as they walk over, the tall man following closely behind them.

“This is Fred”, the shorter man says. The man with the moustache – apparently called Fred – gives a little smile and a nod. “He's gonna drive you back to Hawkins, since he's going that way anyway.”

“I'm going to a conference in Chicago”, Fred supplies, unasked. “And it's just fun to have company, right boys?”

Steve glances at one of the other men, unsure of how to reply.

“Uh”, he says. “Right.”

“Well then”, Fred exclaims and slaps his hands together, “let's get going. Hey, Bill, say hi to my sister for me, will you? Tell her I'll see you guys at Christmas.”

“Will do.”

As Fred turns to apparently-Bill, the taller one turns to Steve and Billy. ”Alright. Safe journey and all that. Remember what you’ve been told.”

_Not likely to ever forget that, thanks_ , Steve thinks, but nods instead of speaking. Fred's briefcase is lying in the passenger seat of the car, and that is reason enough for Steve to reach for the door to the backseat. As he's getting in, Billy walks around the car to the other side.

“Hey, Hargrove!” the taller man calls out and throws something at Billy. Steve can't see what it is – not until Billy sits down next to him in the backseat with a grin on his face, waving a cigarette in Steve's face.

“That one”, he says and motions with his thumb over his shoulder at the tall man, “is almost okay.” He puts the cigarette between his lips, and it's not until then that he seems to realize that he still hasn't got a lighter. His face falls, and Steve smothers a laugh.

When Fred gets in the driver's seat with an “Are you ready to go, boys?” Billy clears his throat.

“Hey, Fred”, he says, voice smooth and cajoling. “You don’t happen to have a light? And is it okay to smoke in the car?”

Fred looks at him in the mirror as he starts the car and drives out of the parking lot. “Oh, yes – that is, I have a light. But my wife don't allow smokers in the car. She's allergic, see. Sorry.”

Billy sighs silently and puts the cigarette behind his ear, and Fred hurries to say, “It's not a long ride to Hawkins, though, maybe half an hour? I'm sure you'll manage.”

“I doubt it”, Billy mutters, but too low for Fred to hear him. Steve hears, though, and elbows him. Billy looks up, mouthing ‘ _what?’_ , and Steve motions to the front seat and mouths back, ‘ _behave’_. Billy rolls his eyes, but out loud he say, “Of course. Thank you.”

“It's really nice of you to drive us”, Steve adds. He can be nice, when he's this close to home. He can be nice to this man, who doesn't even seem to be fully aware of what's going on.

“Oh it's no problem at all. I drive this way several times a week, and Bill knows that. He called me and said you guys needed a ride, and like I was saying, I was going that way anyway. Tell me ...” He looks at Steve through the mirror. “... Have you boys been in a ... sports competition or something?”

No doubt, he's noticed their outfits – matching grey sweatshirts and sweatpants – or maybe their injuries, but Steve is suddenly wary. This man may seems friendly enough, and he hasn't said or done anything to indicate that he knows anything about the place where his ... friend? relative? ... works, but it's just too much of a coincidence. _This is a test._ The certainty hits Steve hard, so he puts on his sheepiest smile when he tells the story they've agreed upon.

“No, we were in a car accident, actually.”

“I _was_ wondering about the bruises ... thought to myself that it must have been one hell of a match. But a car accident, really?”

“Yeah”, Billy butts in, “the driver died and everything.”

“Oh, I'm ... I'm sorry.”

“We didn't know him”, Steve hurries to say. “We were hitch-hiking to get to this concert? He was nice enough to pick us up, but. Yeah. We missed the concert ...”

No one says anything for a beat, and Steve holds his breath. Then Fred straightens up in his seat.

“Well, you boys were _extremely lucky_ , then!”

And it is just an offhand comment – something that someone says to strangers in these kinds of situations – but it makes Steve release a breath he didn't know he was holding. It feels like whatever test that just occurred, he passed it, and he feels raw with relief. He slumps back in the seat as Fred moves on to another topic. Lets Billy handle the talking for a while.

*

Half an hour later finds them on the parking lot outside Freddy's, where Fred chuckles at the name of the diner. Steve’s car is parked next to Billy’s in the far end of the lot, and the keys jingling in Steve's pocket feels like a promise. He gets out of the car and manages to politely thank Fred for driving them; Billy actually leans in through the rolled-down window to shake the man's hand.

“Oh, before I forget”, Fred says and digs through his pocket for something that he then hands to Billy. “You boys take care now. Don't get into any more accidents, you hear me?”

He says it with a smile, jovially, but Steve hears a warning and can't quite repress a shudder. It's only when the man waves at them and drives off that Steve feels the last remnants of tension leave his body. He's watching the tail lights on the car until he can't see them anymore, and then he closes his eyes and exhales. Feels like he can _finally_ breathe properly.

He hears the flick of a lighter next to him, and then the unmistakable sound of someone sucking on a cigarette. He smiles as Billy lets out a moan that is almost indecent.

“Oh fuck, I needed that.”

Looking over, he finds Billy standing on the gravel with the cigarette between his lips, huffing smoke and looking blissed out. He's pale and wearing all grey, his hair looks like a rat's nest and he's got Steve's sweater crammed under his arm. Yet, when he throws his head back to exhale a plume of smoke towards the grey sky, he looks more content than Steve has ever seen him. It soothes something in Steve's chest, too – like he can finally let himself believe that it's over. That they made it.

He nudges Billy’s arm and holds out his hand, expectantly.

“Gimme.”

Billy looks momentarily confused, but then he hands Steve his sweater. And Steve can't help it; he laughs. “No, you idiot!” And then he reaches out and snags the cigarette from Billy's mouth.

“Hey!”

Steve takes a drag from it and revels in the warmth that spreads throughout his body. The smoke momentarily reminds him of the air in the Upside Down, and he coughs a little – but then he remembers that he _chose_ this, and that calms him. He takes another drag, and then lets Billy steal it back from between his fingers.

They keep sharing the cigarette in silence until Steve finally crushes the remnants of it under his shoe. Then they're just standing there.

It's a Wednesday afternoon. Freddy's is open, but they can only see a couple of people through the windows and there are only two more cars outside, not counting theirs. Steve looks from their cars, to the diner, to Billy, and back to their cars.

“So, Billy”, he eventually says, and doesn’t know how to continue.

“Steve”, Billy answers, a hint of friendly mockery in his voice – and it's like an ending and a beginning wrapped up into one moment. The end of the ordeal they went through, and the beginning of something else. It should be ... awkward, maybe? But it's not, and Steve is hit with the realization that things feel _easier_ with Billy. Of course, the things they've been through haven't exactly been _normal_ things, but the fact is that what _should_ be awkward, just _isn’t_. Not with Billy.

“What do you wanna do?” he asks, motioning to the cars, the diner, the world around them – and it's a thrill to realize that technically, they can do anything they want in this moment; they're alone, no one knows they're here and they're free to go in any direction right now.

And maybe Billy's thinking the same thing, or maybe Steve's just projecting, but Billy looks tempted for a couple of seconds. Then he sighs.

“What I _want_ is to get more cigarettes ... but we should probably call your friend Hopper.”

_God, it sucks to be a responsible adult._

”Yeah. Probably.”

None of them suggest that they get in their cars, or that they meet up somewhere to make the call, or that they should go their separate ways now when it’s all over. They both just turn as one towards the diner.

“They probably have a phone we can borrow”, Steve says, and if it's an obvious excuse not to have to get in his car and go back to his apartment or his family or his old life – and how he can think of it as his 'old life' when it wasn't even a week ago is _so strange_ – well, Billy doesn't mention it. He only nods, as if this is the only reasonable thing to do, really, and absent-mindedly holds Steve's sweater out to him.

“Nah, keep it”, Steve tells him. “God knows you need some proper clothes.”

Billy smirks and gestures down at himself. “And cover up all of this? Nobody wants that, Steve.”

“Literally _everyone_ wants that.”

Billy’s smirk turns into a grin and he again motions to himself. “I _know_ that everyone wants this. _All_ of this.”

“Asshole”, Steve huffs, smiling. “Come on. We have a phone call to make. I'll buy you a coffee while we wait for Hopper.”

As they cross the small parking lot, they continue their banter – and it’s so easy to fall into; like the most natural thing in the world.

“You should save your money for all those cigarettes you're gonna buy me.”

“I'm not gonna buy you any cigarettes. They were for if you shut up, and you didn't. The deal's off.”

“You told me to shut up ‘right now’, as in ‘right then’ – you never said I had to keep on being quiet. A deal’s a deal.”

Steve shoves Billy lightly, making him stumble a little. The blonde snickers, probably because he knows that Steve will give in.

A beat, then, “Hey, Steve?”

“Yeah?”

“You never told me what you and your friends did at the quarry.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's the end of it! For now.
> 
> I'm sorry if it's not relationship-y enough. I have just always been fascinated about the JOURNEY, and maybe not so much about the end goal, you know what I mean? Especially when it comes to writing.
> 
> I have some parts of this story written from Billy's POV, that I kind of wanted to work into this story. Sadly, I didn't have time before the reveal date. I kind of like them, though, so if there is interest for it, I might add them as a separate story later on. What do you guys think?

**Author's Note:**

> I ... tried to cram as many things as my Holiday Exchange-recipient liked as possible into one story, and this is the result. It got ... way longer than intended. I have never written a single story of this length by myself before, so ... this was definitely a first.  
> I'm Ihni on tumblr, and Ihni is also my main AO3 account (where I comment and favourite stories from), but I only post rhymes there. Longer writing and stories end up under this pseud.
> 
> English isn't my first language. So please, be kind, but feel free to let me know if I've made mistakes.
> 
> I am very very nervous to post this, because I've been staring at these words for two months now, and have reached the point where I hate it. But I hope against hope that Juniper_Tree likes it :S Merry Christmas!


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